Pakistan reacts to speech
Students protest after Trump says nation supports terrorists.
KARACHI, Pakistan — Pakistan’s foreign office on Sunday issued a terse statement announcing the cancellation of this week’s visit by a senior U.S. delegation, a decision reached days after President Donald Trump demanded that Pakistan shut down havens for the Afghan Taliban.
Alice Wells, Washington’s special representative for Pakistan and Afghanistan, had been scheduled to meet Pakistani officials this week in Islamabad. No reason was given for the cancellation but it was apparently linked to the demand made last week by Trump. Pakistan says it has no safe havens for the Taliban.
“At the request of the government of Pakistan, the visit of the U.S. delegation has been postponed until a mutually convenient time,” the Pakistan foreign office statement said.
Meanwhile, police officer Irfan Baloch said police used tear gas and batons Sunday to disperse anti-U.S. protesters in the southern port city of Karachi when a group of Shiite students tried to march toward the U.S. consulate. An officer was injured in the process, he said.
In Islamabad, a group held a peaceful “Defense of Pakistan” rally Sunday condemning U.S. policy.
Trump in a speech announcing a new strategy for Afghanistan, which includes sending more U.S. troops, said Washington wanted an immediate end to militant sanctuaries, particularly to members of the Haqqani network blamed for some of the worst attacks in Afghanistan.
“From day one we have been saying very clearly the military strategy in Afghanistan has not worked and it will not work,” Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi, who took over as premier three weeks ago, said in an interview Saturday night in Karachi, the nation’s Pakistan police officers commercial capital. There has to be a “political settlement,” he added. “That’s the bottom line.”
Abbasi said that while his government supports the fight against terrorists, it won’t let the war in Afghanistan, with which it shares a 1,550-mile border, spill into Pakistan.
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson on Sunday said the new strategy is intended to pressure the Taliban into negotiating with the Afghan government by “sending a message to the Taliban that we are not going anywhere.”
“I think the president’s been clear that this is a dramatic shift in terms of the military strategy,” Tillerson said on the Fox News Sunday program. He said U.S. moves would be “dictated by conditions on the ground, informed by battlefield commanders.”
“The president was clear that he’s not setting any arbitrary timelines,” Tillerson said. “Our patience is not unlimited.”
The U.S. in previous offensives in Afghanistan used drones to attack suspected terrorists in Pakistan. NATO troops have also used Pakistani ports and roads to move equipment into landlocked Afghanistan.
“We do not intend to allow anybody to fight Afghanistan’s battle on Pakistan’s soil,” Abbasi said during the interview at the former home of the nation’s founder, Muhammad Ali Jinnah. “Whatever has to happen in Afghanistan should be happening in Afghanistan,” Abbasi said, adding that Pakistan doesn’t harbor terrorists.
Abbasi was picked by the ruling party as prime minister this month after the nation’s top court disqualified predecessor Nawaz Sharif in July.
Pakistan’s military has been conducting its own offensive against terrorists with the latest operation in the Khyber tribal region starting last month after the Islamic State extremist group’s presence increased across the border in Afghanistan. The Pakistani army earlier said it had cleared North Waziristan on the Afghanistan border, a region the U.S. has called an “epicenter” of terrorism.
More than 60,000 people have been killed while Pakistan’s economy has suffered a loss of about $120 billion from waging war at home against terrorists, according to the finance ministry. The nation also became one of the largest hosts to refugees globally after Afghans started crossing the border to flee the war after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on the U.S.
Pakistan has started returning refugees and plans to fence its border with Afghanistan to prevent the cross-border movement of militants.
Abbasi said Pakistan is willing to work with all countries including India, from which Trump sought help to develop Afghanistan’s economy, to achieve regional stability. Still, he added the Afghan government should be “owning” the issue and dealing with the Taliban.
“If they require our support, our support is available,” he said. “Our support is unconditional as far as terrorism is concerned.”
Information for this article was contributed by Ismail Dilawar and Faseeh Mangi of Bloomberg News; and staff members of The Associated Press.