ISLAMABAD: Pakistani Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi said his government will push ahead with plans to seize control of charities designated a terrorist by Washington, and warned the United States not to weaken Pakistan.
Abbasi brushed off U.S. President Donald Trump’s recent tweet accusing Pakistan of “lies and deception” in its commitment to fighting terrorism, as he raised the prospect of charging the United States to use Pakistan’s airspace to resupply NATO troops in Afghanistan.
Under pressure from the United States and international institutions to crack down on terrorist financing, Pakistan last month drew up secret plans for a “takeover” of charities linked to JuD leader Hafiz Saeed, who Washington blames for the 2008 attacks in Mumbai that killed 166 people.
The United States has labeled the charities Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JuD) and the Falah-e-Insaniat Foundation (FIF) as “terrorist fronts” for Lashkar-e-Taiba (LET), or “Army of the Pure”, a group Saeed founded in 1987 and which Washington and India accuse of carrying out the Mumbai attacks.
Saeed has repeatedly denied involvement in the Mumbai attacks and says the charitable organizations he founded and controls have no ties with militants.
But both he and the organizations have been sanctioned by the United Nations and his freedom in Pakistan, where he holds public rallies, has been a thorn in Islamabad’s relations with India and the United States.
“Yes, the government will take over the charities which are sanctioned and not allowed to operate,” Abbasi, 59, told Reuters in an interview at the prime minister’s chamber in Pakistan’s Parliament in capital Islamabad.
Answering specific questions about the proposed takeover of JuD and FIF, Abbasi said the civilian government had the backing of the powerful military, which effectively controls Pakistan’s security and foreign policy.
“Everybody is on board, everybody is on the same page, everybody is committed to implementation of U.N. sanctions,” he said.
He declined to set a deadline.
JuD and FIF did not respond to Reuters requests for comment. The organizations have previously said they would take legal action if the government tried to take them over. Saeed could not be reached for comment.
SELECTIVE ACTION
There are concerns in Pakistan that the country may face financial sanctions over accusations of selective action against the militant groups and financing.
Critics accuse Islamabad of only targeting militants who attack the state while leaving unscathed those who target neighboring Afghanistan and arch-foe India. Pakistan denies those allegations.
Abbasi said Pakistan had made progress in curbing terrorist financing after meetings with the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), an international body that warned Islamabad could be put on a watchlist for not doing enough to stop the practice.
“We’ve had several meetings on that, and from what I’ve seen a large part of those actions have been taken,” Abbasi said.
A U.N. Security Council team is due to visit Pakistan this month to review progress against U.N.-designated “terrorist” groups, which includes LeT and others such as the Afghan Taliban-allied Haqqani network.
Former petroleum minister Abbasi said any sanctions against Pakistan would be counter-productive to the country’s own battle against the militants, which he called “the largest war on terror in the world”.
“Any constraints put on Pakistan, actually only serve to degrade our capability to fight the war against terror,” he said.
Relations between the United States and its uneasy ally have frayed since Jan. 1, when Trump lashed out against what he called Pakistan’s “lies and deceit” over its alleged support of Afghan Taliban militants battling U.S. troops in Afghanistan. Washington has since suspended aid totaling about $2 billion.
Abbasi said Trump’s tweet was “unacceptable” in its tone and that Pakistan should not be “scapegoated” for U.S. failures in Afghanistan.
“That is something … we cannot accept because nobody’s suffered more than Pakistan,” Abbasi said, adding that tens of thousands of Pakistani have died from militancy that has inflicted damage worth $120 billion to the economy.
U.S. officials last year warned of tougher measures against Pakistan, including potentially withdrawing its “non-Nato ally” status or even designating it a state sponsor of terrorism.
Abbasi said much of the suspended aid was from the Coalition Support Fund (CSF), a U.S. Defence Department program to reimburse allies for the costs of supporting counter-terrorist and counter-insurgency operations.
He said the U.S. needed to respect Pakistan’s contribution to the fight against militancy and raised the prospect of charging Washington for air transport flights that have been resupplying U.S.-led troops and Afghan forces in landlocked Afghanistan.
“If somebody wants to start quantifying expenses and aid, I think let’s put this on the table also. Let’s discuss that,” Abbasi said, though he added that such talk was “hypothetical”.
Abbasi dismissed media reports that Islamabad has ended intelligence sharing with the U.S. military as false.
And he also spoke fondly about a brief discussion he had with Trump in September at a reception at the U.N General Assembly in New York.
“I found him to be fairly warm,” he said. “Somebody that you would like to engage with and talk to.”