WASHINGTON,  Nov 16 (APP): The U.S. on Monday emphasized that it is working in partnership with Pakistan to deal with the threat of violent extremism, acknowledging that the South Asian country’s recent anti-militant actions have increased Washington’s confidence in Islamabad’s ability to take on the challenge.State Department spokesman Ian Kelly, asked to comment in the backdrop of a news story in The New York about Washington pressuring Pakistan on further anti-terror actions, stressed Islamabad itself is taking the challenge very seriously.

We have seen in recent months a real commitment on part of the Pakistani authorities to really trying to tackle the problem of violent extremists within their border, particularly in these border areas. And we have seen them take concrete steps to address these challenges, Kelly stated at the daily briefing.

I think, we do (have confidence). I think, we certainly have more confidence now that we did, even a few months ago before they did take some decisive action to deal with this problem within their own borders, the spokesman replied when asked if Pakistan is capable of handling the any new flow of militants from Afghanistan.

But, the important thing is that we see it as a partnership that these are shared challenges --- these are problems that in our interest as well to tackle.

And that is why we see our role as supporting them. It is their effort but we stand ready to support them, both on the military side and the civilian side, reconstruction and economic assistance.        Kelly said the Obama Administration has an integrated approach to looking at the problem of violent extremism in general in Pakistan and Afghanistan border areas.

At the same time, we recognize that this is a problem that we cannot attack just by military means.  We also need to deal with some of the underlying problems that give rise to this kind of extremism and provide the people of Pakistan and Afghanistan a hope for a better future. Asked if Pakistan should do more, the spokesman replied that all anti-terror partners can do more to curb the menace of terrorism.

I think we all can do more . I don’t think we should ever be satisfied when it comes to the problem of dealing with this kind of viscous terrorism that we have seen in Pakistan, in Afghanistan and elsewhere.

The authorities in Pakistan are themselves taking the challenge very seriously,” he said referring to the actions taking place in the face of horrible attacks almost hitting the northwestern parts of Pakistan everyday.