U.S. military trainers will be invited back into
Pakistan "as early as April or May," but the nation has ruled out allowing CIA drones back into the country, Fox News has learned.
Relations between the two nations have been at an all-time low since 24 Pakistani soldiers were killed in an inadvertent aerial attack by
NATO in November.
The Pakistani parliament is reviewing the nature of its relationship with the U.S., and politicians are expected on Jan. 30 to deliver a list of conditions for cooperation to resume.
The stipulations will include no covert CIA or military operations on the ground in Pakistan, and no unauthorized incursions into its airspace. Drones, which are the CIA's biggest weapon against militants hiding in the tribal belt dividing
Afghanistan and Pakistan, "can never return," a senior Pakistani official told Fox News.
"They will never be allowed back, at Shamsi or anywhere else," the official added, referring to the base in the country's southwest from which many of the unmanned aerial vehicles were deployed before the NATO attack in November.
In return, Pakistan would allow back U.S. military trainers, including special forces teams, and a resumption of close cooperation with the CIA in targeting militants who use the Pakistani side of the border as a safe haven and breeding ground for extremism. It would also reopen the Torkham and Chaman border crossings into Afghanistan, which have been closed to NATO supply convoys since the attack.
"After this is presented to the Americans, a lot could happen very quickly," the senior official told Fox News, speaking on the condition of anonymity.
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