Belgium: NATO Objects to Pakistan Truce With Taliban

Via NYTimes -

NATO warned Tuesday that a truce between the Pakistani government and Taliban militants in a restive region near the Afghan border risked giving the extremists a “safe haven.” The truce effectively ceded the Swat Valley to the Taliban and ended Pakistan’s military effort to defeat them there. Many NATO troops face attacks by fighters for the Taliban and Al Qaeda who are believed to be taking refuge in pockets of Pakistan’s northwest. “We should all be concerned by a situation in which extremists would have a safe haven,” a NATO spokesman, James Appathurai, said in Brussels. “Without doubting the good faith of the Pakistani government, it is clear that the region is suffering very badly from extremists, and we would not want it to get worse.”