Washington, Oct 12 : US Secretary of State Codoleezza Rice has underlined the serious challenges, including terrorism and financial instability, facing the country could be a direct threat to the United States itself.

She said that the US was actively engaged in efforts to help Pakistan’s democratic government overcome economic challenges facing it.

“Pakistan has a very serious terrorism problem, very serious. And it''s not just a problem from our point of view that what happens across the Pakistan-Afghanistan border, or the presence of Al-Qaeda there that could be a threat to US interests,” FOX News quoted Rice, as saying.

Rice said although there is a new situation in Pakistan and something that Washington had actually advocated for, the country faces a lot of very bad challenges with a very serious terrorism problem.

“We have a new situation in Pakistan, and it’s a situation that we actually advocated for, which is that there would be a civilian government, the ends of military rule in Pakistan, which came into being in 1999. It’s been 10 years, nearly 10 years of military rule,” she noted.

Rice stressed that the US was “working” closely with the new government in Pakistan.

Referring to the assassination of former premier Benazir Bhutto and the stepped up terror violence in Pakistan over the last few months, the top US official underlined that extremism has become a threat to Pakistan itself.

“It’s also, obviously, a threat to Pakistan, because there have been bombings in Pakistan. There was, of course, the assassination of Benazir Bhutto,” Rice said, adding “And so we have a common goal with Pakistan to deal with the extremism and with terrorism.” (ANI)