Obama pressure on militants hurts Afghanistan: Pakistan

US President Barack Obama's warning to Islamabad over suspected ties to militants will hurt efforts to stabilise Afghanistan and fuel anti-Americanism, the chairman of Pakistan's Senate Foreign Affairs Committee said on Friday.

Pakistan is seen as critical to bringing peace to neighbouring Afghanistan, but the United States has failed to persuade it to go after militant groups it says cross the border to attack Western forces in Afghanistan.

"This is not helping either the United States, Afghanistan or Pakistan," Salim Saifullah told Reuters. "There will be pressure on the (Pakistan) government to get out of this war," he said, referring to the US war on militancy.

Obama warned Pakistan on Thursday that its ties with "unsavory characters" have put relations with the United States at risk, as he ratcheted up pressure on Islamabad to cut links with militants mounting attacks in Afghanistan.

He accused Pakistan's leaders of "hedging their bets" on Afghanistan's future, but stopped short of threatening to cut off US aid, despite calls from lawmakers for a tougher line over accusations that Pakistani intelligence supported strikes on US targets in Afghanistan.

Saifullah said Washington's public criticism of Pakistan was counter-productive and would only create tensions between allies that would play into the hands of militant groups.

"War in Afghanistan is passing through a critical phase, evolutionary phase, at this stage muddying water is not appropriate," he said.

"This is exactly what the militants want. They are playing to their tune. This is adding strength to them."

Pakistan hedges bets with ties to militants: Obama

President Barack Obama said Pakistan is "hedging its bets" by maintaining ties to militant groups that are trying to undermine the government in neighbouring Afghanistan, and acknowledged that the United States has been unable to convince Pakistan that the US goals of a stable Afghanistan poses no threat to its neighbour.

Obama did not echo the harsh assessment of his former chief military adviser that Pakistan had contributed directly to a militant attack on the US Embassy in Kabul.

The president said the US would "constantly evaluate" its relationship with Pakistan to see whether it was advancing American interests. Having given Pakistan more than $20 billion in aid since the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on the United States, Americans are increasingly questioning the value of assistance that has yet to yield a more willing partner in the fight against Islamic extremist groups fighting U.S. troops in Afghanistan.

"I think that they have hedged their bets, in terms of what Afghanistan would look like. And part of hedging their bets is having interactions with some of the unsavory characters who they think might end up regaining power in Afghanistan after coalition forces have left," Obama said.

A few days before leaving his job last month, Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Adm. Mike Mullen called the Taliban-affiliated Haqqani insurgent network a "veritable arm" of the Pakistani intelligence agency and alleged direct support for militants who had mounted a 20-hour rocket attack on the U.S. Embassy in Kabul the week before.

The United States wants to "transition out of Afghanistan and leave a stable government behind, one that is independent, one that is respectful of human rights, one that is democratic," Obama told a news conference. The reference was to a plan to withdraw US and other international forces by 2015. He added: "Pakistan, I think, has been more ambivalent about some of our goals there."

"There is no doubt that there's some connections that the Pakistani military and intelligence services have with certain individuals that we find troublesome," Obama said

He said the US was trying to bring the two neighbours closer together, "but we've still got more work to do."

While the US has suspended some military assistance to Pakistan, Obama rejected the idea that the US would withhold humanitarian aid for disasters such as floods "because of poor decisions by their intelligence services."

He conceded that Americans are "not going to feel comfortable with a long-term strategic relationship with Pakistan if we don't think that they're mindful of our interests as well," but he stressed that his administration has made great strides in its No. 1 job in Pakistan: fighting al-Qaida.

In elaborating his argument, he avoided any mention of the U.S. operation that killed bin Laden in May, and the Pakistani anger it has prompted, saying only that American successes in the border region between Pakistan and Afghanistan could not have been possible without Pakistani support.

"On a whole range of issues, they have been an effective partner with us," Obama noted.