The United States is now back in the business of trying to intensify its counter-terrorism cooperation with Pakistan, now that the ground lines of communications are open, a US official has said.
“In the context of having reopened the ground lines of communication, we are back in the business of trying to intensify our counter-terrorism cooperation with Pakistan,” State Department spokesperson Victoria Nuland told reporters at her daily news conference here.
“For example, some of the working groups that the Secretary (of State) set up a year ago in October/November when she was in Pakistan, the work that got suspended is coming back online. We’re going to have a couple of those groups meeting, in fact, even this week,” she said.
Nuland added that the United States will offer its support to Pakistan as there is more work to do to counter terrorism inside the country.
Responding to questions with regard to an interview given by Dr Shakeel Afridi to Fox News channel, in which the Pakistani doctor has made serious allegations of physical abuse and torture; besides that Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) has been supporting terrorist outfits as a “matter of policy” and that the spy agency considers America as its main “threat” she noted that the allegations if found correct are extremely “concerning”.
“We can’t at this point verify the authenticity of the interview. If we do find that it’s authentic, though, then the allegations would be extremely concerning,” Nuland said.
“Pakistan obviously has international human rights obligations, including under the Convention Against Torture, and we would expect that the people and the Government of Pakistan would be interested in investigating such claims by Dr Afridi if, in fact, it turns out that this tape is authentic. But at this point, I can’t verify,” Nuland said when asked about the interview.
The Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has been extremely outspoken on this case for many, many months and has called the sentence “unjust and unwarranted,” she said.
“And we continue to do that at all levels,” the US official said.