Top U.S. and Pakistan military officials talk strategy

By David Morgan

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Top U.S. and Pakistani military officials met this week on a U.S. aircraft carrier in the Indian Ocean to discuss the presence of militant safe havens in Pakistan and their role in Afghan violence, officials said on Thursday.

But Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, played down any expectation that the day-long meeting aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln on Tuesday would lead quickly to progress against militants operating in Pakistan's northwestern tribal region.

"It's just going to take some time," Mullen told reporters at a Pentagon briefing. "Expectations for instantaneous results I think are probably a little bit too high."

But he said: "I came away from the meeting very encouraged that the focus is where it needs to be."

The meeting at sea was the fifth between Mullen and Pakistan's Army Chief of Staff Gen. Ashfaq Kayani and took place amid mounting U.S. concern about insurgent violence in Afghanistan following last week's suicide bomb attacks on a major U.S. military base in the southeast and the combat deaths of 10 French elite troops.

Also in attendance were U.S. Commander in Iraq Gen. David Petraeus, who takes over responsibility for the Middle East and South Asia next month; top NATO commander in Afghanistan Gen. David McKiernan; U.S. special operations chief Eric Olson and Lt. Gen. Martin Dempsey, who is currently in charge of the Middle East and South Asia region.

U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan face an intensifying insurgency, especially in eastern regions of the country where troops have clashed with highly trained foreign fighters that U.S. officials say are based at Taliban and al Qaeda safe havens across the border in Pakistan.

American concerns have deepened about the ability of nuclear-armed Pakistan to confront militants in its northwestern tribal regions, with U.S. ally Pervez Musharraf no longer in office as president and political squabbles paralyzing the country's civilian government.

Mullen said he welcomed recent Pakistani military action in the violence-plagued tribal areas but said both Pakistan and the United States needed to do more to shore up security.

"We're trying to figure out how that fits into bringing pressure onto that border to minimize the cross-border operations from Pakistan," the admiral said.

"(Kayani) is moving in that direction. I'm pleased that he's moving in that direction and that he is actually operating," Mullen added. "We have got to figure out how to get at this problem."

(Editing by Alan Elsner)