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US to have close ties with
Pakistan: Rumsfeld

T V Parasuram in Washington

The United States said on Wednesday that the relationship it has established with Pakistan and countries like Uzbekistan during the conflict in Afghanistan will be "very close" in all spheres.

"I suspect that we will continue to have very close relationships, not just military but also diplomatic and economic," Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld said.

Citing some of the advantages these countries are getting, he said: "We have helped their airports. We have fixed runways and we have put in various kinds of instruments that allow airplanes to go in and go out."

Pakistan, he said, has been doing a great many things to be helpful, and the US military and government have been using their fuel, airports, some of their ports, and their airspace.

The US requested and Pakistan has responded positively, supplying troops along the border, he said, adding: "They have just been enormously helpful."

With Uzbekistan, he said, "We already had military-to-military relationships.... We obviously have developed a much closer relationship and they have been enormously cooperative, and I suspect we will have these kinds of relationships for some time into future. It is good for them, it is good for us, it is good for North Atlantic Treaty Organisation."

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