Pakistan says relations with US will suffer after aid suspension
Pakistan accused of failing to tackle extremism in Afghanistan
The United States has announced it is suspending security assistance to Pakistan for failing to take “decisive action” against Taliban militants in neighbouring Afghanistan.
The State Department’s declaration signalled growing frustration over Pakistan’s level of cooperation in fighting terrorist networks. Initially vague information on how much money and materiel was being withheld suggested the primary goal was to substantiate President Donald Trump’s surprising New Year’s Day tweet that accused Pakistan of playing US leaders for “fools.”
Spokeswoman Heather Nauert said the restrictions covered security assistance above and beyond the $255 million for Pakistani purchases of American military equipment that the administration held up in August.
Nauert made clear the $255m was still blocked, and the Pentagon said the new action targets payments of so-called Coalition Support Funds that the US pays to Pakistan to reimburse it for its counterterrorism operations.
Defence spending legislation for 2017 provides for up to $900m in Coalition Support Funds, of which $400m can only be released to Pakistan if Defense Secretary Jim Mattis certifies Pakistan has taken specific actions against the Haqqani network. None of the $900m has so far been disbursed, the Pentagon said. The last Coalition Support Funds were paid to Pakistan in March last year, provided under defense spending legislation for 2016.
On Monday, Trump said the US had “foolishly” given Pakistan more than $33 billion in aid in the last 15 years and had gotten nothing in return but “lies & deceit.” He reiterated longstanding allegations that Pakistan gives “safe haven to the terrorists we hunt in Afghanistan.”
Trump unveiled in August a South Asia strategy aimed at ending the stalemate in the US war in Afghanistan, now entering its 17th year. Nauert said that despite sustained high-level engagement with Pakistan’s government, “the Taliban and Haqqani network continue to find sanctuary inside Pakistan as they plot to destabilize Afghanistan and attack US and allied personnel.” She told reporters that until Pakistan takes “decisive action” against those groups, security assistance was suspended.
Civilian development and economic assistance to Pakistan is not affected.
The State Department also accused Pakistan of severe violations of religious freedom. It announced that it was placing Pakistan on a special watch list, pursuant to 2016 legislation. The step does not carry any serious consequences.
Pakistan’s embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to a request for comment Thursday.
But on Tuesday, Pakistan called Trump’s tweet “completely incomprehensible” and at odds with recent “trustbuilding” visits by Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Mattis. It accused the US of scapegoating Pakistan for its own failure to bring peace to Afghanistan.
A senior Pakistani senator expressed disappointment at the US decision to suspend military aid to Islamabad, saying it will be detrimental to Pakistani-us relations.
Nuzhat Sadiq, chairwoman of the Senate Foreign Affairs committee in the upper house of parliament, says Islamabad can manage without the United States as it did in the 1990s, but would prefer to move the troubled relationship forward. Sadiq said yesterday that “what the US is doing now is not good for its policy against terrorism and for a lasting peace in this region.”
She said that Pakistan has always “played a vital role in the war on terror.”
The haphazard nature of the announcement suggested it had been hastily arranged rather than developed through a traditional policy process.