Pakistan: Ties to U.S. on hold

Ties with the United States are temporarily suspended, the Pakistani foreign minister said after U.S. lawmakers voted to freeze an aid package. Relations between Islamabad and Washington hit a low point after U.S. Navy SEALs killed al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden on a raid of his compound in Pakistan in May. The relationship deteriorated further when a NATO-led airstrike accidentally killed 24 Pakistani soldiers in November. On Wednesday, the U.S. House of Representatives approved a bill that would freeze a $700 million military aid package unless Islamabad provides assurances on insurgents in the volatile border with Afghanistan. Pakistani Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar said Thursday that bilateral ties with the United States "are on hold," the News International in Pakistan reports. Khar said she wasn't concerned about the aid package because Islamabad was "talking to other countries for the release of U.S. aid." The U.S. Embassy in Islamabad stressed the measure passed Wednesday doesn't cut military aid, only conditions it on reporting requirements from the Pakistani government. "Assistance conditioned to reporting requirements is not new, nor are such reporting requirements specific to Pakistan," the embassy said. "This is standard practice in nearly every country that receives U.S. military assistance."