Pakistan, US need to work together to eliminate terrorism from region: Aizaz

WASHINGTON: Pakistan’s Ambassador to the United States (US) Aizaz Ahmad Chaudhry has said that Pakistan and the United States must work together to eliminate terrorism in the region.

In an interview with Los Angeles Times, the ambassador expressed concern over current stress in relations between the two countries. He said that both the US and Pakistan have worked together for 70 years and need to find common ground for achieving shared objectives.

Referring to the US President Trump’s tweet, the ambassador said that the relationship should not be categorised and people felt humiliated and there was a big public outrage.

He said we think there is still enough work to be done by Pakistan and the US, particularly to stabilise Afghanistan and eliminate terrorism from our region.

The ambassador said security situation in Afghanistan is deteriorating which is a great cause of concern for Pakistan. He pointed out that all our gains against terrorism will be at risk if Afghanistan does not stabilise.

The ambassador pointed out that this time around, unfortunately, the US and Pakistan have begun to focus more on what divides them, rather than on what unites them. And that’s something that we hope will change.

“The way it is being perceived in Pakistan is that we are being scapegoated for failure in Afghanistan. We are the bogeyman. [But] we don’t think that anyone from our intelligence would support elements who would kill their own children. That’s not acceptable to anyone of us. We don’t like the Taliban and the Haqqani. We do not want them on our land. They should be participating in the political mainstream in Afghanistan.

What should the US be doing to engineer a political solution in Afghanistan, the ambassador remarked.

He said that all this mess is because Pakistan is providing some safe haven to some Taliban is an oversimplification of the quagmire called Afghanistan.

Aizaz Chaudhry said it would be a pity if the US and Pakistan pick up a bilateral fight rather than what is clearly a joint undertaking of shared interest in stabilising Afghanistan and bring peace there.

He said: “Pakistan and the United States have worked together. They have been partners. When Trump’s indignities were thrown at the Pakistani people there was a big commotion. But the government decided to give a very restrained and measured response because we didn’t want anti-Americanism to spread in Pakistan”.

He said our channels of communication are open. We are talking every day. But the conversations that were taking place during the previous administration should be continued and upgraded. He said that rupture would be equally injurious to the US and to Pakistan.

Earlier in a lecture at the University of Southern California, Los Angeles, Chaudhry said that although Pakistan desired good relations with the US, it cannot be made a scapegoat for the failures of others in Afghanistan.

“Peace in Afghanistan is in Pakistan’s own interest. However, peace will remain elusive by the pursuit of a purely military solution and that political reconciliation is the only option to move forward,” he said while delivering a talk on Pakistan-US relations at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA).

In his remarks, the ambassador highlighted the importance of having good relations between Pakistan and the United States, which had historically seen highs and lows in the last 70 years.

He said both countries had benefited whenever they had worked together. Therefore, he added, it was imperative that they continued to work together to secure peace and stability in Afghanistan and the region, despite strained ties due to divergent approaches.

The ambassador said there were no safe havens for terrorists in Pakistan today, thanks to the remarkable success of military operations in the tribal areas conducted by Pakistani security forces in the last three years.

He added that relations between Pakistan and the US had always been broad-based and multifaceted and they could not be held hostage to the situation in Afghanistan.

Drifting away from each other, he said, would not be in the interest of either country. He expressed the hope that even if relations between both governments were under stress, people to people contacts and private sector engagements remained strong and robust.