Pakistan is very important for the US: Gates

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Despite trust deficit in bilateral ties, Pakistan is very important state for the US due its nuclear weapons and the importance of its stability in the region, defence secretary Robert Gates has said.

"Pakistan is very important, not just because of Afghanistan but because of its nuclear weapons, because of the importance of stability in the subcontinent.

So we need to keep working at this," Gates said in response to a question at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), a Washington-based think tank.

"I do not think that the money that we have spent in Pakistan has been a waste. The reality is that Pakistan now has 140,000 troops on the border. Their actions in Swat and in South Waziristan have been helpful to us," he argued.

"Our relationship with Pakistan is not what we wish it were. There is, as the Pakistanis are fond of pointing out, a deficit of trust, in their view because the United States has abandoned them on several occasions in the past; most recently, in 1990 and in 1989 after the Soviets left and then with the Pressler Amendment," he noted.

"I would say this administration has made a significant effort to try and change the nature of our relationship with Pakistan, in terms of a more enduring partnership. I would say that, obviously, the record is a mixed one. And we both have concerns, but there's also no doubt in my mind that we have to continue to make our best efforts to manage this relationship going forward," Gates said.