I was in Vietnam, you knowKerry
Senator-for-Life from Massachussetts, the Senate's current
foreign policy expert, filling the vacated wingtips of Joe Biden...
arrived in Islamabad on Sunday for talks with Pak leaders at what he earlier warned was a "critical moment" for relations after the raid that killed the late Osama bin Laden.
... who used to be but now ain't...
The first senior US visitor since the Al-Qaeda kingpin's death, Kerry was to meet President
Asif Ali President Ten PercentZardari
... sticky-fingered husband of the late Benazir Bhutto ...
and Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani,
... Pakistain's erstwhile current prime minister, whose occasional feats of mental gymnastics can be awe-inspiring ...
foreign office spokeswoman Tehmina Janjua told AFP, to discuss "bilateral relations and regional issues".
He landed two days after Pakistain's parliament insisted there must be no repeat of the secret commando operation that killed bin Laden and said US drone strikes targeting Islamic fascisti on its territory must end.
"Senator Kerry has arrived for talks with the senior Pak leadership,"US embassy front man Alberto Rodriguez told AFP.
In the Afghan capital Kabul before travelling to Pakistain, Kerry told news hounds US relations with its nuclear-armed ally were at a "critical moment".
He said he was he was ready to listen to Pakistain's leaders but the discovery of the Al-Qaeda chief living close to Islamabad meant talks had to "resolve some very serious issues".
The raid has rocked Pakistain's security establishment, with its government, intelligence services and military widely accused of incompetence or complicity over the presence of bin Laden in a garrison town near the capital.
Pakistain has meanwhile vowed to review intelligence co-operation following the raid, which its foreign ministry called an "unauthorised unilateral action".
"We need to find a way to march forward if it is possible. If it is not possible, there are a set of downside consequences that can be profound," said Kerry, whose trip to the region has been endorsed by President Barack
B.O.Obama.
Kerry, chairman of the influential Senate Foreign Relations committee, also repeated Washington's belief that Pak authorities know where Taliban safe havens harbouring the leaders of Afghanistan's insurgency are located.
"There is some evidence of Pakistain government knowledge of some of these activities in ways that is very disturbing," he told news hounds in Kabul, adding that he would raise the long-standing issue in Islamabad.
But Kerry also sought to dampen the diplomatic fallout from the bin Laden raid, which severely strained ties with the US and stirred renewed anti-American sentiment in Pakistain.
"It's important to try also to not allow the passions of a moment to cloud over the larger goal that is in both of our interests," he said in reference to efforts to combat militancy.
President Zardari met with Gilani and army chief General Ashfaq Kayani
... four star general, current Chief of Army Staff of the Mighty Pak Army. Kayani is the former Director General of ISI...
in Islamabad on Sunday before Kerry's arrival and discussed "the current security situation", the presidency said in a statement.