ISLAMABAD : Defence Minister Khurram Dastgir said Pakistan is determined tomaintain a positive relationship with the United States despite PresidentDonald Trump’s decision to suspend military aid to the nuclear-armednation, Bloomberg reported.
Khurram Dastgir Khan played down the significance of Trump’s Jan. 1 halt toabout $2 billion in funding, saying aid had been considerably reducedalready and the U.S. hadn’t provided spare parts for its weapons systemsfor three years. Pakistan will increasingly seek weapons from China andRussia, along with Eastern European and South American countries, he said.
“Just to say because of one president we’re going to scuttle therelationship, that would be incorrect and unwise,” he said. “We have a longrelationship and we want to keep it.”
Tensions worsened further after Trump’s first tweet of 2018, in which hesaid Pakistan gave “nothing but lies and deceit.” The discord comes asPakistan faces rising economic imbalances six months before an election,with foreign reserves dwindling and current account and trade deficitswidening.
Trump’s words stoked speculation that Pakistan may close U.S. ground andair supply routes to landlocked Afghanistan in retaliation for the aidsuspension. Khan said Pakistan has yet to take that action out of hope therelationship can be salvaged.
The fact that ground and air supplies “are still open is a very clearsignal of intent that we want a positive relationship with the UnitedStates,” he said. “We haven’t acted hastily and unlike the tweet we haven’tacted impulsively — we are acting with due deliberation.”
Khan rejected Trump’s complaint that Pakistan isn’t doing enough to stopmilitants that conduct cross-border attacks. Islamabad is committed tofighting extremism and doesn’t grant safe haven to terror groups, he said,citing an announcement this week that 27 Taliban and Haqqani networkmilitants were handed over to Afghanistan in November. Kabul denied thetransfer.
“There are no safe havens of any terrorist organization in Pakistan,” Khansaid. “But we should remember there was a time there were about fivemillion Afghans in Pakistan and so they are scattered across the country.”
In the past three years, domestic security across Pakistan has vastlyimproved following anti-terror operations on insurgents targeting thecountry.
“This is a Pakistan that has largely prevailed over terrorism on its soil,”said Khan. “But apparently the Americans continue to persist in their oldways of thinking and they continue to externalize their failures inAfghanistan by blaming it on Pakistan.”
Despite being at loggerheads with its war-torn neighbor, Khan hinted thatIslamabad is willing to help arrange peace talks with the Taliban whenPakistan officials meet with Afghan counterparts in the coming days. Hecautioned, however, that Pakistan’s influence over the group has“substantively” waned.
Many of the Taliban’s leaders were trained and schooled in extremistseminaries in Pakistan, and have allegedly taken shelter in cities such asQuetta and Karachi over the years.
“We will facilitate to the maximum extent we can, but we cannot guaranteeanything,” Khan said. “We want peace in democratic Afghanistan so we canbegin to exploit the economic benefits of regional connectivity.”
It’s yet to be seen if such talks would join the countless failed attemptsto bring the Taliban to the table. Kabul has repeatedly accused Pakistan ofassisting the group and affiliated militants. Islamabad has denied theseallegations, but opposes increased Indian influence in Afghanistan, whichTrump is encouraging. Pakistan’s military, which effectively controlssecurity and foreign policy, fears encirclement from its arch-rival on twofronts.
Khan suggested a recent spate of Taliban-claimed attacks in Kabul that lefthundreds dead and wounded last month were “blowback” for Trump’s troopincrease and aggressive policy reducing U.S. efforts at nation building,which Khan called “short-sighted.”
Since then no “serious dialogue is happening” between Pakistan and the U.S.and intelligence cooperation has drastically been reduced, Khan said. Lowerlevel working relations have been blocked, while ministerial and higherlevel bilateral discussions aren’t productive, he said.
Orignally published by NNI