‘Pakistan rejects US call for Operation in North Waziristan."

A demand made by Admiral Mike Mullen to Gen Ashfaq Pervez Kayani for a military operation in North Waziristan was rejected on Thursday,

Pakistan Army was effectively handling an operation against militants and it would not like to open a new front.Gen Kayani had informed the federal government about the demand,The US was officially conveyed the message that the Pakistan Army could not conduct the operation

Senior military officers of Pakistan and NATO held talks Thursday on the matters related to NATO containers and security situation.Defence sources told that senior military officers of NATO and ISAF camping in Afghanistan arrived in Quetta Thursday in two helicopters and met commander of Southern Command Lt Gen Javed Zia. During the meeting both the sides discussed how to ensure safe departure of containers and oil tankers to Afghanistan via Chaman.

Both the sides agreed on the need for making intelligence sharing more effective for prevention of movement of militants.Sources said NATO and ISAF authorities expressed certain reservations in connection with security of their tankers. The participants of the meeting also agreed to continue the contacts between NATO and the Pakistan Army on different crucial matters.

The contact comes on the heels of a statement by US President Barack Obama’s top military adviser that Pakistan’s army has pledged to go after militants.Navy Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, had said General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani has given assurances he will mount an offensive the US has long called for in North Waziristan along the Afghan border.

Mullen cited as evidence for his optimism Pakistan’s offensives against the Taliban and related groups elsewhere in the country during the past 1½ years.“He’s committed to me to go into North Waziristan and to root out these terrorists as well,” Mullen, 64, said in an interview on Bloomberg Television’s “Conversations with Judy Woodruff” to be broadcast this weekend. “He clearly knows what our priorities are.”

Mullen said he hadn’t read Washington journalist Bob Woodward’s latest book on the administration’s strategy debates, “Obama’s Wars.”While not taking direct issue with the book’s suggestions that the military limited Obama’s Afghanistan options during a strategy review last year, Mullen said the military provided its best advice.

He said the goal was to defeat al-Qaeda and ensure Afghanistan wouldn’t again become a haven for the group as it had been before the U.S. ousted the Taliban from power after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks.“That’s how I approached my best military advice to the president,” Mullen said.

It’s “just a fact of life that significant military resources have been drawn away to help deal with this terrible flooding situation they have,” Defense Secretary Robert Gates told reporters traveling with him to a meeting in Brussels at the headquarters of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, which leads the 47-nation coalition in Afghanistan.“So the question is, at what point do they return to the offensive,” Gates said, adding “the sooner, the better.”

North Waziristan “is the epicenter of terrorism,” Mullen said in his interview. “It’s where al-Qaeda lives.”Still, Mullen didn’t give a time frame for a possible offensive in North Waziristan. He said Kayani has primarily targeted groups that pose an internal threat, not those the U.S. considers most dangerous.