President Barack Obama's decision to impose more restrictive rules governing US drone strikes and his prediction that they will be used less could pave the way for better relations with the new government of key ally Pakistan, officials and analysts said today.
Obama fell short of Pakistani demands to announce an end to the attacks, but his landmark speech yesterday was seen as addressing some of Islamabad's main concerns over the covert CIA drone programme targeting militants in the country's northwest tribal region along the Afghan border.
The strikes are extremely unpopular in Pakistan because they are widely believed to regularly kill large numbers of civilians - a claim the US says is exaggerated.
The Pakistani government also criticises the attacks as a violation of its sovereignty.
Obama cast the drone strikes as crucial to US counterterrorism efforts and said they have decimated al-Qaeda's core leadership in Pakistan's tribal region. But he acknowledged that they are not a "cure-all" and would likely decline as the US withdrew its combat troops from Afghanistan by the end of 2014.
"Obama has finally responded to the popular sentiment in this country, which is fiercely against the drones, and I think that shows a certain sensitivity," said Mushahid Hussain, chairman of the defence committee in Pakistan's Senate.
"But for the people of Pakistan, that is not good enough unless there is a cessation of drone attacks."
Pakistan's foreign ministry reiterated this point.
"The government of Pakistan has consistently maintained that the drone strikes are counterproductive, entail loss of innocent lives, have human rights and humanitarian implications and violate the principles of national sovereignty, territorial integrity and international law," the ministry said in a statement.
Even though Obama defended the use of drones, Pakistani officials and analysts thought his comments and new guidelines governing the attacks could create space for improving strained relations between the two countries, as a new government led by former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif is set to take power in the coming days.
According to an unclassified summary of the new guidelines, the US will not strike if a target can be captured, either by the US or a foreign government; a strike can be launched only against a target posing an "imminent" threat; and the US has a preference for military control of the drone programme, although the CIA will continue to control the attacks in Pakistan.
Meanwhile, a US diplomat today accidentally killed a pedestrian while driving in Islamabad, but the incident didn't seem to be making waves.
