ISLAMABAD – Prime Minister Imran Khan has shot down a request from anAmerican intelligence agency for cross-border counterterrorism missions.
During an interview with HBO Axios’s Jonathan Swan that due to air onSunday, the premier reiterated the country’s stance on the use of militarybases and categorically denied giving its bases to the US for operations inAfghanistan after the troops’ withdrawal.
PM while responding to the development said Pakistan will not allow the CIAor any special forces to base themselves inside the South Asian countryever again. ‘Will you allow the American government to have the CIA here inPakistan to conduct cross border counter-terrorism missions against AlQaeda, ISIS, and the Taliban?” the HBO journalist asked PM Imran.
Premier, who has long opposed US involvement in the war on terror,responded ‘Absolutely not, there’s no way we’re going to allow any bases orany sort of action from Pakistani territory into Afghanistan’.
Reports cited that the Pentagon and US State Department have been pursuingformer Soviet republics to Afghanistan as places to continue operationsafter the September 2021 withdrawal, but so far had little luck.
Earlier, White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan said the UShas had ‘constructive discussions’ with Pakistan about ensuring Afghanistanwill never again become a base from which terrorist groups can attack theUS, but declined to go into specifics.
On June 07, a leading US newspaper says that ‘Pakistanis have demanded avariety of restrictions in exchange for the use of a base’.
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The article published by the New York Times (NYT) stated that ‘Indiscussions between American and Pakistani officials, the Pakistanis havedemanded a variety of restrictions in exchange for the use of a base in thecountry, and they have effectively required that they sign off on anytargets that either the C.I.A. or the military would want to hit insideAfghanistan, according to three Americans familiar with the discussions.’
Later, Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi responded that Islamabad hastold Washington that it would not give military bases as Pakistan has tolook after its own interests.
Pakistan has refused to give military bases to the United States, addingthat incumbent government has told all political parties that they have nointention to allow any US military base’, he clarified.
Meanwhile, US officials are still hopeful they can come to a covertarrangement with Islamabad to have an eye on war-torn Afghanistan.
