NEW YORK – Defence Minister Khurram Dastgir Khan has criticized the U.S.suspension of security aid to Pakistan, saying the move has emasculated thewar on terror in the region.
“By choosing castigation over cooperation, the U.S. has emasculated the waron terror in this region,” he was quoted as saying in an interview with TheWall Street Journal (WSJ), a major American financial newspaper.
Dastgir Khan’s comments are part of the Journal’s dispatch from Islamabad,headlined: ‘With U.S. Aid Cut, Pakistan Drifts Closer to China’.
As regional alliances shift in the wake of U.S. actions against Pakistan,the dispatch wrote, ‘China jumped in with statements supportive ofPakistan, as did Iran and Turkey; Pakistan has also improved itsrelationship in recent years with another American antagonist, Russia,setting up Islamabad with a quartet of alternative allies who have tense oradversarial relationships with Washington.”
“Punishing Pakistan pushes it towards America’s major adversaries,” thedefence minister said.
Foreign Minister Khawaja Muhammad Asif has already declared the Pakistan-USpartnership to be over. “We do not have any alliance,” Asif told theJournal last week.
The WSJ dispatch refers to the strengthening Sino-Pakistan ties, saying,“China has already invested heavily in a relationship that is redefiningthe balance of power in Asia, anchored by a $55 billion-plus infrastructureprogram that aims in part to boost Pakistan’s economy in part as acounterweight against their common competitor, India.”
Pakistan, the report added, also believed that it is key to any eventualpeace deal to end the war in Afghanistan.
“If America distances itself from Pakistan, any reconciliation is notpossible in Afghanistan without Pakistan sitting at that table,” DastgirKhan, the defense minister, said. -APP