Pakistan suspends military and intelligence cooperation with US
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ISLAMABAD - Pakistan has suspended military and intelligence cooperation with the United States in the wake of Trump's threats that Pakistan has given the US "nothing but lies and deceit" and suspension of security aid for Pakistan, Defence Minister Khurram Dastgir Khan said while addressing a gathering at Institute of Strategic Studies in Islamabad on Tuesday.
Speaking during a seminar titled 'Contours of Security Environment of Pakistan', Khan said the US is facing defeat in Afghanistan despite spending billions of dollars. He alleged that the US is using Pakistan as a 'scapegoat' for its failures in Afghanistan.
"Pakistan does not want to put a price on its sacrifices but wants them to be recognised," the defence minister said, adding that Pakistan will not allow Afghanistan's war to be fought on Pakistani territory.
Khan also said that the US is busy in a blame game against Pakistan rather than providing it with assistance to secure the Pak-Afghan border. ARTICLE CONTINUES AFTER AD
Answering a question on the occasion, the minister said that Pakistan took the right steps by blocking Nato supplies to Afghanistan in the aftermath of 2011 Salala attack.
But Pakistan is not taking the same route after Trump's recent tirade as it is a "leverage we want to use at the appropriate time", he clarified.
The defence minister said Iran, China and Russia are as important to the region as the US and reaffirmed Khwaja Asif signalling that the alliance between Pakistan and the US is over.
"This is not how allies behave," Asif had said in an interview with the *Wall Street Journal <link>*earlier this week. He maintained that Washington has turned Islamabad into a "whipping boy" for its failures in Afghanistan.
The Pentagon on Monday said that the US has told Pakistan what it must do if it wants Washington to resume paying out hundreds of millions of dollars in security aid.
“Our expectations are straightforward,” Pentagon spokesman Colonel Rob Manning told reporters.
“Taliban and Haqqani leadership and attack planners should no longer be able to find safe haven or conduct operations from Pakistani soil.”
