US Defence Secretary Robert Gates said on Wednesday that Pakistan should be wary of holding talks with he local Taliban. He told the British Broadcasting Company that earlier efforts to negotiate with the militants had not worked out. Speaking in Delhi, Gates said the February 18 polls had been bad for President Pervez Musharraf, but the US hoped to continue working with him. Opposition parties are uniting to form PakistanÂ’s next government after faring well in the last weekÂ’s polls. President Pervez MusharrafÂ’s allies fared poorly. He described Musharraf as the elected president of Pakistan. Gates said a new government would have to face the reality that Al Qaeda militants and insurgents were operating along the frontier.
Didn’t work out: “Even the Musharraf government tried talking and doing deals in Waziristan. That didn’t work out very well. Maybe this new government in Pakistan will have to go through the same experience itself,” he said.