WASHINGTON – United States has unveiled its Pakistan strategy ahead of thearrival of US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and the US military chief.
The top civil military duo is arriving in Pakistan for their firstface-to-face talks in Islamabad with the newly installed government underPrime Minister Imran Khan on Wednesday.
Trump administration stressed that Pakistan will have to follow the USstrategy in Afghanistan for good bilateral relations.
State Department and the Pentagon have urged Pakistan to use a combinationof military and diplomatic pressures to force the Taliban to work withKabul for restoring peace in Afghanistan.
The Trump administration hopes that a working relationship between theTaliban and Kabul could lead to an honorable withdrawal of US troops fromAfghanistan.
Earlier, the Pentagon announced that it was seeking to reallocate $300million in aid to Pakistan due to Islamabad’s lack of “decisive actions” insupport of America’s Afghan strategy.
The US has been pushing Pakistan to crack down on alleged militant safehavens in the country — which Pakistan denies — and announced a freeze onaid at the beginning of the year that an official said could be worthalmost $2 billion.
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No restoration of US security assistance to Pakistan before the war inAfghanistan ends, more restrictions may be imposed and Washington hasserious concerns about Pakistan’s growing economic ties with China,said Assistant Secretary of Defence for Asian and Pacific Security AffairsRandall G. Schriver.
The Trump administration was willing to give Imran Khan and his team some“space” to make their policies, he added.
“In terms of separating what was said during a campaign and what he saidsince the election, we want to give him (Mr. Khan) space to find theopportunities to improve things with India,” Schriver said.
Mr. Schriver also dispelled the perception that Washington was trying todestabilize Pakistan.
