Supply Lines Cast Shadow at NATO Meeting on Afghan War
President Obama was struggling to manage key shifts in the relationships with his two South Asia counterparts on Sunday, as a deal to reopen supply lines through Pakistan to Afghanistan appeared stalled just as Mr. Obama began talks on ending the NATO alliance’s combat role in the Afghan war.
Mr. Obama remained at loggerheads with President Asif Ali Zardari of Pakistan, refusing to meet one-on-one with him even though Mr. Zardari flew to the NATO summit meeting in Chicago ostensibly to finalize the supply line agreement.
In contrast, Mr. Obama and President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan, whose relationship has been at turns awkward or tense over the past four years, huddled on Sunday morning to discuss how to make progress together in reconciliation talks with the Taliban.
It was a measure of just how bad things have gotten between the United States and Pakistan that Mr. Obama’s relationship with Mr. Karzai — which has been rocky since Mr. Obama came into office vowing to end what he viewed as former President George W. Bush’s coddling of the mercurial Afghan leader — actually seemed relatively stable on Sunday.