Trump accuses ally Pakistan of lies
PAKISTAN/US: Pakistan’s defence minister responded angrily yesterday to an earlymorning tweet by President Donald Trump that accused America’s once-close ally of ‘‘lies & deceit,’’ countering that the United States had given Pakistan ‘‘invective and mistrust’’ in return.
In his first tweet of the new year, Trump had said that the US had ‘‘foolishly’’ given Pakistan US$33 billion (NZ$46.5b) in aid over the last 15 years, ‘‘and they have given us nothing but lies & deceit, thinking of our leaders as fools’’.
Trump wrote further: ‘‘They give safe haven to the terrorists we hunt in Afghanistan, with little help. No more!’’
Defence Minister Khurram Dastgir-Khan hit back on Twitter, writing that Pakistan, as an ‘‘antiterror ally’’ of the US, had given Washington land and air com- munication, military bases and intelligence co-operation that ‘‘decimated al Qaeda over the last 16yrs’’ while America ‘‘has given us nothing but invective and mistrust’’.
Officials in the country’s capital of Islamabad scrambled to arrange a cabinet meeting to be held today to adopt a response to the Twitter attack, while Foreign Minister Khawaja Muhammad Asif said in a television interview that the country is ready to publicly provide an accounting of ‘‘every detail’’ of US aid it has received.
Pakistan was already doing all it could to combat terrorism within its borders, he said.
‘‘We have already told the US that we will not do more, so Trump’s ‘no more’ does not hold any importance,’’ Asif said.
The tense exchanges followed days of speculation that the Trump administration – dissatisfied with the way Pakistan has dealt with the Taliban-affiliated Haqqani network and other terrorist groups – was set to dramatically reduce aid to the South Asian nation, long a key partner in the region.
Michael Kugelman, deputy director for the Asia Programme at the Woodrow Wilson Centre in Washington, said that Trump may have been likely telegraphing an upcoming decision to reduce aid to the country.
‘‘The Trump administration has been keen to take a harder line on Pakistan but up to this point it hasn’t been clear if the White House would follow through on the threats.
‘‘This tweet suggests some type of change could be afoot,’’ Kugelman said.
However, Kugelman added: ‘‘We shouldn’t overstate the policy significance of this tweet. It’s more likely to be an expression of frustration or a statement of intent rather than an actual declaration of a new policy.’’
According to a November report from the Congressional Research Service, the US has appropriated $34b in direct aid and military reimbursements for Pakistan since 2002, with proposed security and economic assistance at $345 million for this fiscal year.
That number is a significant decrease from the $526m allotted in fiscal year 2017.
In India, news of Trump’s tweet was met with celebration in some quarters, a healthy dose of scepticism in others.
Analysts pointed out that in October Trump had tweeted that the administration was ‘‘starting to develop a much better relationship with Pakistan and its leaders.’’ – Washington Post