United States Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Monday said there was a sea change in the attitude of Pakistanis in the last one year and appreciated the military actions being taken by its army against the Taliban militants.
"I think what we've seen over the course of this year is a sea change in attitude by the Pakistanis. If we'd been sitting here a year ago and you had asked what they were going to do, there wouldn't be much of an answer," Clinton told the NBC news channel in an interview.
"Now we can say they are beginning to go after the terrorists who are threatening their very existence as a sovereign nation. They've had two military campaigns in the space of the last eight months, and they are making real progress," she said.
"What we are discussing and consulting with them over is how all of these groups are now a threat to them. There is a syndicate of terrorism with al Qaeda at the head of it," she said.
"So we are doing everything we can to support them in what is a, really, life-or-death struggle. I mean, they just blew up -- the terrorists just blew up a mosque in Rawalpindi filled with military officers. These terrorists, with al Qaeda's funding, encouragement, training, equipping, is going right at the Pakistani government," Clinton said.
Asked about Osama bin Laden, she said: "I really believe it's important to capture and kill Osama bin Laden, Zawahiri, the others who are part of that leadership team. But, certainly, you can make enormous progress, absent that."
"So, we're going to be consulting with our Afghan partners. It's going to be a multiply-run operation to see who might come off of the battlefield and who might possibly give up their allegiance to the Taliban," Clinton said.
She was also highly skeptical of the possibility of any high level negotiations with the Taliban.
"We don't know yet. And again, I think that we asked Mullah Omar to give up bin Laden before we went into Afghanistan after 9/11; he wouldn't do it. I don't know why we think he would have changed by now," she said.
However, US Defence Secretary Robert Gates was of the view that they would come on the negotiation table only when they do not have any other option left.
"I think that the likelihood of the leadership of the Taliban, or seniors leaders, being willing to accept the conditions Secretary Clinton just talked about depends, in the first instance, on reversing their momentum right now, and putting them in a position where they suddenly begin to realise that they're likely to lose," Gates said.
The Secretary of State said the US is in Afghanistan primarily because of its national security interests and not to build the country.
"We have a commitment to trying to protect our national security. That's why we're there. We do want to assist the people of Afghanistan and to try to improve the capacity of the Afghan government," she said.
