Pakistan calls $50m funds reimbursement, not aid

• Aizaz points out staggering human, financial cost in fight against terrorism

The $50 million withheld by the Pentagon from Pakistan were not assistance but a reimbursement of expenses incurred by Pakistan towards achieving common objectives in the fight against terrorism, said Aizaz Chaudhry, Pakistan’s ambassador to the United States.

He said that Pakistan had paid a staggering human and financial cost during the past decade in the fight against terrorism. “It is a well-known fact that Pakistan’s counter-terrorism efforts have resulted in a significant decline in terrorists attacks,” he said.

He further said that Pakistan was maintaining the momentum in fighting terrorism… through Raddul Fassad operation and the recently-launched Khyber-4 operation. His remarks were in response to reports by a foreign agency that Pentagon has withheld $50 million that were to be paid under the Coalition Support Fund.

According to the report, the funds were held back after US Secretary of Defence Jim Mattis said he could not verify that Pakistan had made enough efforts against the Haqqani Network, during a US Congress defence committee hearing.

The US had allotted $900 million to Pakistan under the Coalition Support Fund, out of which $550 million had already been reimbursed. Out of the total, $300 million were withdrawn by the Congress as part of a broader appropriations act.

However, the report, quoting Pentagon spokesman Adam Stump, said that the withholding of funds did not reduce the significance of the sacrifices that the Pakistani military had undertaken over previous years.