Obama snubs Zardari at NATO summit for increasing transit fees for U.S. military supply trucks but has no problems killing scores of Pakistani`s via drone strikes

Obama snubs Asif Ali Zardari at NATO

Brad Norington
The Australian
May 21, 2012

Asif Ali Zardari has met the US secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, at the Nato summit but Obama will not sit down with Pakistan's president. Photograph: Bob Strong/Reuters

Barack Obama has snubbed Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari despite inviting him to a NATO summit in Chicago, as a bitter dispute rages over supply routes that could disrupt the planned US troop withdrawal from Afghanistan.

The US President refused to meet Mr Zardari yesterday in the midst of Pakistan’s refusal to compromise over increasing the fee for trucks to pass through its territory to Afghanistan from $US250 ($253) to $US5000.

[The fact that Zardari had to settle for a meeting with Clinton rather than the president is in itself a snub.]

Pakistan closed its borders and then demanded the huge price rise for moving US supply trucks through its territory after US air strikes killed 24 Pakistani soldiers in November.

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