FM says Pak-US strategic logic against terror intact

• Asif says Pakistan is not just fighting, but also winning against terrorism

WASHINGTON: Foreign Affairs Minister Khawaja Asif on Thursday stressed that the strategic logic behind working with the US against terrorism remains intact.

Speaking at the US Institute of Peace, he said that Pakistan and the US had remained long-standing friends. Both the countries have much to gain by working together, he said, adding that he was addressing a remark made by US President Donald Trump, as he announced his South Asia policy in August.

Lambasting Pakistan for providing ‘safe-havens’ to agents of chaos, Trump had said that Pakistan has much to gain by working with the US. “A partnership anchored in mutual respect and pursuit of common interests and understanding of each other’s concerns has served us in the past,” the foreign minister said, adding that there arises a need among friends to revitalise and refresh their friendship.

“Since 9/11, our cooperation against terrorism has helped consolidate mutual gains and has degraded Al Qaeda, which attacked us both,” Asif added. However, he said that lately, there has been a tendency to place Pakistan’s counter-terrorism credentials under focus.

“The truth is Pakistan is not just fighting but also winning against terrorism,” he said. “We are fighting terrorism along and winning.” He said that Pakistan had rendered sacrifices in the fight against terrorism and, suffering economic losses, had seen a decline in the number of terrorist incidents.

He said that as democratic institutions in the country thrive and the economy develops, converting domestic security and economic gains into wider regional stability has remained a challenge for Pakistan due to the continued conflict in Afghanistan. For Pakistan, the timeline of managing the fall-out of Afghanistan’s security has been 30 years, he said.

“Islamabad believes that there lies a potential for a broad-based and stand-alone bilateral relationship with Kabul,” he pointed out. For 40 years, Pakistan has managed the blow-back of political instability and violence in Afghanistan, he said and noted that large areas inside Afghanistan have either fallen out of the government’s control or remain under contest.

As a result, terrorists, escaping counter-terrorism operations in Pakistan, have found safe havens in Afghanistan and plan attacks against Pakistan, he said. “Pakistan calls the effective elimination of this safe havens in Afghanistan,” he said.

“Sadly, peace has alluded Afghanistan for decades. Pakistan can understand the despondency that such a long conflict can bring but pessimism is dangerous because it can take away hopes of peace,” he said and urged greater cooperation between Islamabad and Washington and reiterated Pakistan’s support for an Afghan-led and Afghan-owned peace process.

On Wednesday, the visiting foreign minister held a meeting with US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson in Washington. After the meeting, Tillerson had said that he believed the US had a reliable partner in Pakistan. He also said that US-Pakistan relationship held extraordinary importance in the region.

“And as we rolled out the South Asia strategy, we spoke about it in a regional context,” he said. “It is not just about Afghanistan. This is about the importance of Pakistan, and Pakistan’s long-term stability as well,” he said, directly addressing Islamabad’s fear that Washington continued to view its relationship with Pakistan from the perspective of Afghanistan, and in doing so, ignored Islamabad’s interests.