Pakistan, US urged to rebuild mutually beneficial ties

CHICAGO: The United States (US) and Pakistan need to intensify their contacts in an effort to remove some

misperceptions in order to rebuild a mutually beneficial relationship, a senior Pakistani diplomat said Friday.

“Whenever US and Pakistan worked together in the past, both the countries benefited largely as the working relations between both the countries had always yielded positive results,” Consul General Faisal Niaz Tirmizi said while addressing a seminar at the East West University of Chicago.

“Disengagement is not a solution,” he said at the event that was organised by the university to promote an understanding of Pakistan’s perspective about the US policy under President Trump’s administration.

Speaking on the occasion, the consul general briefed the audience about the seven decades of US-Pakistan relations which, he said, had been mutually beneficial. In this regard, he highlighted Pakistan’s role in promoting the US-China rapprochement and its cooperation that led to the defeat of communism.

Further, he said Pakistan had also made a huge contribution in combating terrorism, adding that the people and the armed forces of the country had laid down great sacrifices in the last decade or so in the war against terrorism. The US should not blame Pakistan for its failures in Afghanistan, Tirmizi stressed.

He regretted President Trump’s New Year tweet blaming Pakistan for being an untrustworthy ally, saying that a large portion of the US aid to Pakistan was provided to compensate the country for the money it had spent to fight different terrorist organisations.

Tirmizi reiterated Pakistan’s pledge to help bring about a negotiated settlement of the Afghan

crisis, saying that Pakistan had provided two opportunities for negotiations, unfortunately, both were floundered by US and Afghanistan.