ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — When Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton invited questions from a selected group of Pakistanis here on Friday, a woman in the audience humorously captured the essence of a very troubled relationship, at least from Pakistan’s point of view.
“We are trying to please you,” she explained, “and every time you come and visit us, and you tell us, ‘You’re not doing enough and need to work harder.’ ”
And for a second day, so Mrs. Clinton did, repeatedly calling on Pakistan’s government to shut down safe havens from which extremists have mounted attacks in Afghanistan and to support nascent efforts to negotiate with those extremists willing to lay down their arms.
Mrs. Clinton’s bountiful remarks — in a news conference with the country’s foreign minister, in the “town hall” meeting of business executives and civic leaders and in a round-table interview with television journalists — came a day after she, David H. Petraeus, the director of the Central Intelligence Agency, and Gen. Martin E. Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, spent five hours with their Pakistani counterparts.
Despite the convergence of America’s top diplomatic, military and intelligence officials, the talks appeared to produce no immediate breakthrough in the deeply strained relationship.
The delegation, officials said, bluntly warned Pakistan that it faced a decisive choice between fighting alongside the United States — or watching as American forces act alone against the extremist Haqqani network, even inside Pakistan, if necessary. On Friday, Mrs. Clinton said that “for too long” the group had been able to operate freely.
“We asked very specifically for greater cooperation from the Pakistani side to squeeze the Haqqani network and other terrorists because we know that trying to eliminate terrorists and safe havens on one side of the border is not going to work,” she said, referring to Afghanistan. “You know, it’s like the old story: you can’t keep snakes in your backyard and expect them only to bite your neighbors.”
Mrs. Clinton continued the talks behind closed doors on Friday, meeting with Pakistan’s president, Asif Ali Zardari, and the foreign minister, Hina Rabbani Khar. By the end of a second day, it was not clear that the American push had any immediate effect.
It was also not clear what additional actions the United States might take, though a senior official suggested that one option would be to pursue militants retreating back into Pakistan after attacks.
The United States has already displayed a willingness to operate unilaterally in Pakistan, as with the raid that killed Osama bin Laden and the attacks by drones against Haqqani network leaders. Those attacks have deeply angered officials and the public in Pakistan.
Mrs. Clinton said that cooperation appeared to be “back on track,” and that the United States expected to see concrete operations in a matter of “days and weeks.” But neither she nor her aides described specific results from the diplomatic showdown or the Pakistani reaction.
Publicly at least, the differences remained as sharp as ever, even as Mrs. Clinton tried to moderate the tone of the American message by praising the history of relations between the nations. Ms. Khar, the foreign minister, stood beside her and questioned the very premise of the American argument.
“There is no question of any support by any Pakistani institutions to safe havens in Pakistan,” she said. “Let me be unequivocal and completely clear about that.”
Ms. Khar went on to argue that Pakistan took the threat of extremism “very, very seriously because we live with this threat on a daily basis; we live with this threat on an hourly basis.”
Pakistan’s more powerful security officials — including the chief of the military, Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, and the director general of the intelligence service, Lt. Gen. Ahmed Shuja Pasha — did not publicly address the American talks.
Mrs. Clinton suggested that the Americans wanted specific military and intelligence operations against the Haqqani network, which uses Pakistan’s tribal areas as a base for attacks inside Afghanistan.
Before stepping down as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Adm. Mike Mullen said the group was “a veritable arm” of Pakistan’s intelligence agency.
Mrs. Clinton faced skeptical questioning from the two audiences of Pakistanis she arranged to meet to make her case to the broader public here. Pressed by a Pakistani journalist, she backed away from Admiral Mullen’s assertion, saying she had “no evidence” to support it.
On three occasions, she was also asked to explain the seeming contradiction in the United States’ urging Pakistan to crack down on the Haqqani network and the Taliban, while Washington was also pressing for negotiations with elements of such groups as part of a political reconciliation in Afghanistan.
For the first time, she acknowledged that the United States had met secretly with a Haqqani representative this summer — at the urging of the Pakistani intelligence service, an aide later said, declining to discuss it further.
“We had one preliminary meeting to essentially just see if they would show up for even a preliminary meeting,” Mrs. Clinton said.
Weeks later, according to American officials, the Haqqani network carried out an enormous bombing on an American military base in Warduk, and last month the group carried out a 19-hour assault on the American Embassy and NATO headquarters in Kabul. Mrs. Clinton argued that it was important to pursue a military and a diplomatic strategy for battling extremists and ending the war in Afghanistan.
While security loomed largest, Mrs. Clinton also tried to reflect the broader relationship between the countries, emphasizing common interests like improved trade and billions of dollars in economic, political and humanitarian aid.
She also said that as a mother-in-law herself, she would endeavor to listen more and demand less. “I personally believe,” she said in response to the metaphor invoked by the Pakistani woman, “this relationship is critical, important to us both, and therefore we cannot give it up.”
A version of this article appeared in print on October 22, 2011, on page A4 of the New York edition with the headline: Clinton Widens Audience in Pakistan, but Sticks to Tough Message.
