Kerry’s skipping of Pakistan from Asia trip absolutely not a snub: US

The United States on Wednesday said Secretary of State John Kerry was keen to visit Pakistan soon and his skipping Pakistan during the Asia trip starting this week was “absolutely not” a snub to the key South Asian country.

The State Department said Kerry wanted to spend sufficient time to discuss the wide-ranging cooperation between the two countries.

“Secretary Kerry plans to visit Pakistan as soon as his schedule permits. He will meet the new civilian government, which just took office there,” State Department spokesperson Jen Psaki said.

The spokesperson said Kerry’s not going to Pakistan on the trip to Asia, which included a stop in New Delhi, was “absolutely not” a snub to the country.

“The secretary is ready to go, he wants to go. We are working on scheduling the time to go.”

“Given the range of issues of mutual importance to both us and Pakistan including, of course, counterterrorism and coordination on that, it is very important for Secretary Kerry that he gets sufficient time in Pakistan, when he travels there,” she explained.

“We wanted to make some decisions that enabled him at his request to be able to spend good amount of time on the ground,” she said.

On the controversial US drone strikes, the spokesperson said Washington had an ongoing dialogue with the Pakistan on it.

During his trip to India, Kerry was likely to address regional issues.

“As always we encourage cooperation, consultation, discussion between the government of India and the government of Pakistan. Our position has not changed on Kashmir, as you know. And those discussions are up to the governments of India and Pakistan,” Psaki said.

She was responding to a question in the backdrop of the killing of a 10-year-old girl in Indian firing across the Line of Control in Azad Kashmir, the Indian fighter jets’ violation of Pakistani airspace and the US stance on encouraging dialogue between the two South Asian nuclear powers.