US to look at Pakistan’s role in last two decades: Blinken
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has told his country's angry lawmakers that Washington will look at the role Pakistan played in the last 20 years after they expressed outrage over Islamabad's ‘duplicitous' role in Afghanistan post the 9/11 attacks and demanded that the US reassessed its relationship with Pakistan and its status as a major non-Nato ally.
The lawmakers queried Blinken on the Joe Biden administration's response to the quick collapse of the government in Afghanistan and the state department's actions to evacuate Americans and others.
Joaquin Castro, a Democratic congressman from Texas, asked the secretary of state that given Pakistan's long-time support for the Taliban and backing the outfit's leaders over the years, whether it was time for the US to reassess its ties with Pakistan. Blinken then said that the US will be looking at the role Pakistan played over the last two decades and the role Washington wants to see it play in the coming years.
‘For the reasons you cited as well as others, this is one of the things we will be looking at in the day and weeks ahead, the role that Pakistan has played over the last 20 years and the role we would want to see it play in the coming years,' Blinken told Castro, Chair of the Subcommittee on International Development, International Organizations and Global Corporate Social Impact.
Responding to a question on if he knew former Afghan President Ashraf Ghani was planning to leave, Blinken said he had spoken to Ghani on the night of August 14 who had stated ‘fight to the death' and was not aware of Ghani's plan to leave Afghanistan.
Ghani left war-torn Afghanistan on August 15 as the Taliban entered the capital Kabul and seized power.