US delaying rent for Pak military services: Tarin

[Naveed Yaseen]

ISLAMABAD (February 20 2009): The United States has not paid Pakistan a penny for the last nine months for rendering its military services to fight the Taliban and al Qaeda in tribal areas bordering Afghanistan, an official said on Thursday. Shaukat Tarin, the financial advisor to Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani, said Pakistan's latest reimbursement bill of 1.35 billion dollars for flushing out militants from the region in NWFP, was delayed.

"We have not received any amount since May 2008," Tarin told reporters. "Some accounting and procedural complications have delayed the release and we have asked them to pay the bill as soon as possible," he said, adding that the bills should be paid from the Coalition Support Fund.

According to Tarin, the sides negotiated the issue for months and the Washington has approved a payment of close on 1 billion dollars, while the talks for the remainder were continuing. "The military reimbursement bills have been increased and change in the format for reconciling the actual expenditures with the demands has created difficulties for releasing the amount for Islamabad," said an official in the finance ministry who spoke on condition of anonymity.

The US has so far provided around 10 billion dollars of aid for social development as well as in form of military aid. Tarin said Pakistan is projected to face around 8 billion dollars alone in the ongoing fiscal year, ending on June 30. "Our investments have been dried up and imports and exports affected," he said. "The war against terror is ours but it is also the war of our western friends," Tarin said.

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