Washington: Pakistan is whining after President of the United States of America (USA) Joe Biden and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi called on Islamabad to ensure its territory is not used as a base for militant attacks. The Pakistani government, as always, is complaining that the USA-India joint statement about Pakistan is “baseless and one-sided”.
The joint statement could be term as a diplomatic coup by India in the face of Washington’s continued commitment to working with Pakistan “to address the shared threat posed by terrorist groups throughout the region”.
Although Pakistan’s proximity to China has changed the dynamics of US-Pak relations to an extent, Pakistan remains an important country in Washington’s geo-strategic space. The US, hence, is of the opinion that the Pakistanis have suffered “tremendously” from terrorist attacks over the years.
But where New Delhi of late has succeeded in impressing upon the US policymakers is that Islamabad has done little or nothing to permanently disband all terrorist groups, including Lashkar-e-Taiba, Jaish-e-Mohammed, and their various front organizations.
“We will raise the issue regularly with Pakistani officials and will continue to work together to counter mutual terrorist threats, as we discussed during our March 2023 CT [Counter Terrorism] dialogue (in Islamabad),” Matthew Miller, the US State Department Spokesperson, said here today (IST).
It may be mentioned that the two-day Pakistan-U.S. Counterterrorism Dialogue that opened in Islamabad on March 6, 2023, was a policy-focused-meeting to discuss the counterterrorism landscape in Pakistan and the broader region, with a focus on areas where the United States and Pakistan can better collaborate to counter “regional and global threats, improve cooperation, prevent and counter violent extremism, and combat terrorism financing”. Both governments then resolved to increase dialogue on these topics and continue discussing paths to restart or introduce counterterrorism programs to assist Pakistan’s efforts to better counter all forms of violent extremism.
The US today almost pronounced that these efforts were not enough even as it recognised Pakistan’s “important” steps to counter terrorist groups in line with the completion of its Financial Action Task Force action plans which included the arrest and conviction of Sajid Mir, a member of the terrorist organisation Lashkar-e-Taiba, who was the chief planner of the terrorist attacks in Mumbai, during 26 November 2008.
What could be even more disturbing for Pakistan is the USA obliquely asking Pakistan to maintain the ceasefire along the line of control. “…we commend both Pakistan and India for continuing to uphold the ceasefire along the line of control,” Miller said.
With India gaining the confidence of the US, a rattled Pakistan now seems more determined to exploit a communal line by raking up issues concerning Muslims in India under the ruling right-wing nationalist political outfit the Bharatiya Janata Party, and Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Islamabad seems particularly perturbed that the Modi-Biden joint statement had no mention of “human rights and religious freedom violations in India”. Replying to a query on this by a Pakistani journalist, who today demanded clarification on whether “there were any discussions on this particular topic during the meeting between Modi and Biden, Miller said, “What I will say is that we regularly raise concerns about human rights in our conversations with Indian officials. And you saw President Biden speak to this himself in the joint press conference that he held with Prime Minister Modi”.
Responding to the claim by the Pakistani journalist that a social media post by the Assam Chief Minister used “quite insulting language” about former US President Barrack Obama, Miller shut him down saying, “No, no, I don’t think so”.
– global bihari bureau
