ISLAMABAD: The Pakistani army today said during a visit by US Defence Secretary Robert Gates that it can’t launch any new offensives against militants for six months to a year to give it time to stabilise existing gains.

The announcement probably comes as a disappointment to the US, which has pushed Pakistan to expand its military operations to target militants staging cross-border attacks against coalition troops in Afghanistan. Washington believes such action is critical to success in Afghanistan as it prepares to send an additional 30,000 troops to the country this year.

But the comments by army spokesman Maj Gen Athar Abbas clearly indicate Pakistan will not be pressured in the near term to expand its fight beyond militants waging war against the Pakistani state. Whether it can be convinced in the long term is still an open question.

“We are not talking years,” Abbas told reporters travelling with Gates. “Six months to a year” would be needed before Pakistan could stabilise existing gains and expand any operations.

The Pakistani army launched a major ground offensive against the Pakistani Taliban’s main stronghold near the Afghan border in mid-October, triggering a wave of retaliatory violence across the country that has killed more than 600 people.

The US wants Pakistan to take on militants who use its border region as a base for attacks on US forces in Afghanistan, but Gates said he will not directly press his hosts.

“I think the way I will approach it is simply to ask them what their plans are,” Gates said, adding that the US has heard of plans to expand Pakistani military operations against militants in the border area of North Waziristan sometime later this year.

Pakistan should be given room to expand its military offensive against militants on its own terms and timetable, Gates said ahead of his talks with the country’s civilian and military leaders today.

Meanwhile, Gates today warned that Taliban safe havens along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border must be tackled or both nations would suffer “more lethal and more brazen” attacks.

Gates, who arrived in Islamabad from India for a two-day visit, stressed Washington’s commitment to Pakistan and praised offensives launched against the Pakistani Taliban across the lawless northwest tribal belt in recent months.

But US officials have made clear that Washington is anxious to see Islamabad also target the Afghan Taliban within its borders and Al-Qaeda-linked militants using the tribal region to plot and launch attacks into Afghanistan.

“It is important to remember that the Pakistani Taliban operates in collusion with both the Taliban in Afghanistan and Al-Qaeda, so it is impossible to separate those groups,” Gates said. “If history is any indication, safe havens for either Taliban, on either side of the border, will in the long run lead to more lethal and more brazen attacks in both nations.”