‘We have a long relationship with US and we want to keep it’
Defence minister says just to say because of one president, Islamabad is not going to scuttle ties
Pakistan’s defence minister said his country is determined to retain a positive relationship with the US despite the US President Donald Trump’s decision to suspend military aid to the nucleararmed nation.
In an interview in his parliamentary office on Wednesday, Khurram Dastgir Khan played down the significance of Trump’s January 1 halt to about $2 billion in funding, saying aid had been considerably reduced already and the US hadn’t provided spare parts for its weapons systems for three years. Pakistan will increasingly seek weapons from China and Russia, along with Eastern European and South American countries, he said.
“Just to say because of one president we’re going to scuttle the relationship, that would be incorrect and unwise,” he said. “We have a long relationship and we want to keep it.”
Relations between Pakistan and the US have deteriorated rapidly since Trump announced his South Asia strategy in August. In that speech he joined a long list of other American officials in accusing Pakistan of duplicity for taking aid while supporting groups that attack US forces and allies in Afghanistan.
Tensions worsened further after Trump’s first tweet of 2018, in which he said Pakistan gave “nothing but lies and deceit.” The discord comes as Pakistan faces rising economic imbalances six months before an election, with foreign reserves dwindling and current account and trade deficits widening.
Trump’s words stoked speculation that Pakistan may close US ground and air supply routes to landlocked Afghanistan in retaliation for the aid suspension. Khan said Pakistan has yet to take that action out of hope the relationship can be salvaged.
The fact that ground and air supplies “are still open is a very clear signal of intent that we want a positive relationship with the United States,” he said. “We haven’t acted hastily and unlike the tweet we haven’t acted impulsively — we are acting with due deliberation.”
Khan rejected Trump’s complaint that Pakistan isn’t doing enough to stop militants that conduct cross-border attacks. Islamabad is committed to fighting extremism and doesn’t grant safe haven to terror groups, he said, citing an announcement this week that 27 Taliban and Haqqani network militants were handed over to Afghanistan in November. Kabul denied the transfer.
“There are no safe havens of any terrorist organisation in Pakistan,” Khan said. “But we should remember there was a time there were about five million Afghans in Pakistan and so they are scattered across the country.”
In the past three years, domestic security across Pakistan has vastly improved following anti-terror operations on insurgents targeting the country.