Secretary of State John Kerry declared in an interview with Pakistan TV Thursday that U.S. drone strikes in the country will soon come to an end.
But that message apparently wasn’t relayed back to Foggy Bottom. Three hours after Kerry’s comments first broke, a spokesperson took them right back. “In no way would we ever deprive ourselves of a tool to fight a threat if it arises,” a State Department spokesperson said.
Kerry is in Pakistan to try and make nice with Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, the country’s newly elected leader who has made repeated, vociferous demands for the United States to end its use of drone strikes on Pakistani territory. And for a few hours on Thursday it seemed that he had arrived bearing a major olive branch and a striking concession on U.S. drone policy. “The program will end as we have eliminated most of the threat and continue to eliminate it,” he said in the interview. “I think the president has a very real timeline and we hope it’s going to be very, very soon.”
Full story: Kerry says drone strikes in Pakistan will end, spokesperson takes it right back