{"id":35387,"date":"2018-01-06T13:35:37","date_gmt":"2018-01-06T08:05:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/apnlive.com\/?p=35387"},"modified":"2018-01-06T13:35:38","modified_gmt":"2018-01-06T08:05:38","slug":"pakistan-suspension-security-assistance-will-harm-us-interests","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/apnlive.com\/world-news\/pakistan-suspension-security-assistance-will-harm-us-interests\/","title":{"rendered":"Pakistan: Suspension of security assistance will harm US interests"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]<strong><em>US informed India before announcing its Pak decision<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Facing US ire on terror related ineffective measures, Pakistan Foreign Office has been reacting through multiple means. Friday witnessed release of a statement on the \u201cSpecial watch list for severe violations of religious freedom\u201d while its spokesperson suggested the \u201csuspension of security assistance would only serve to dent the US interests.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Meanwhile a report says that US Ambassador to India Kenneth Juster met Foreign Secretary S Jaishankar hours before the Washington\u2019s announcement of its decision to suspend security aid and military equipment to Pakistan.<\/p>\n<p>The US official has reportedly told that Washington\u2019s decision was also based on Palkistan\u2019s failure to crack down on Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JuD) and chief and 26\/11 Mumbai attacks mastermind Hafiz Saeed. Sources in New Delhi believe that this is \u201cshift\u201d from Washington\u2019s earlier position when it used to exert pressure on Pakistan about Taliban and Haqqani terror group.<\/p>\n<p>Pakistan\u2019s Foreign Office statement issued on Friday said, that it \u201crejects the US designation of Pakistan in the &#8221;Special Watch List for severe violations of religious freedom.&#8221; The report is not based on objective criteria. \u201cThis placement on special watch list is a \u201cnew categorization\u201d and we would be seeking clarification from the US regarding its rationale and implications\u201d it added.<\/p>\n<p>It reminded of Pakistan\u2019s significant achievements in the area of human rights. It said, \u201cPakistan is firmly committed to the promotion and protection of human rights including the right of religious freedom, under its Constitution.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Pakistan Foreign Minister Khwaja Asif, in one of his video address uploaded on his twitter account, expressed the pain of his country becoming US proxy and the implications:<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-lang=\"en\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">A transactional relationship for US over 6\/7 decades..Pakistan remained friend\/ally..fulfilled commitments during the cold war..Afghan &#8220;Jihad&#8221; 80s.. Afghanistan re visit after 9\/11..Americans transacted the relationship on need basis..NO MORE <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/ifWU7NdSBh\">pic.twitter.com\/ifWU7NdSBh<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Khawaja M. Asif (@KhawajaMAsif) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/KhawajaMAsif\/status\/949375557120282625?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">January 5, 2018<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>Meanwhile, according to Dawn, Dr. Mohammad Faisal, spokesperson of the Foreign Office in Islamabad said on Friday that suspension of security assistance would only serve to dent the US interests. He said, \u201cWe are engaged with the US administration on the issue of security cooperation and await further details. Impact of US decision on pursuit of common objectives is also likely to emerge more clearly in due course of time.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>He further said, \u201cWe are determined to continue to do all it takes to secure the lives of our citizens and broader stability in the region.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Pakistan\u2019s Foreign Office spokesperson warned that emergence of new and more deadly groups such as <em>Daesh <\/em>in Afghanistan call for enhancing international cooperation. \u201cArbitrary deadlines, unilateral pronouncements and shifting goalposts are counterproductive in addressing common threats,\u201d the spokesman said.<\/p>\n<p>Islamabad has also sent out a grim reminder to the Trump administration that Pakistan alone could not be responsible for peace in the region, and Kabul too had a role to play. He said, \u201cOur efforts towards peace are awaiting reciprocal actions from the Afghan side in terms of clearance of vast stretches of ungoverned spaces on the Afghan side, bilateral border management, repatriation of Afghan refugees, controlling poppy cultivation, drug trafficking and initiating Afghan-led and Afghan-owned political reconciliation in Afghanistan.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He clarified\u00a0 to the Trump administration that &#8220;If Pakistan today sees significant improvement in security achieved through a series of major counter-terrorism operations resulting in elimination of organized terrorist presence, then this has also directly served US national interests as well as the larger interests of international community\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>The spokesman added, \u201cIt has helped decimate al-Qaeda and fight other groups who took advantage of ungoverned spaces, a long porous border and posed a common threat to peace.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Meanwhile, DG Inter Services Public Relations (ISPR) Major General Asif Ghafoor on Friday said suspension of US aid to Pakistan would impact bilateral security cooperation between the two nations and regional peace.<\/p>\n<p>While talking to VOA, General Ghafoor has reportedly said : \u201cSuspension of security assistance will not affect Pakistan\u2019s resolve to fight terrorism; however, it for sure will have an impact on Pakistan-US security cooperation and efforts towards regional peace.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Meanwhile, US National Security Adviser H.R McMaster has told the Voice of America (VoA) that &#8220;Pakistan is a country with tremendous potential \u2014 human potential, economic potential\u2026.We have to really begin now to work together to stabilise Afghanistan.&#8221;[\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column][\/vc_row]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]US informed India before announcing its Pak decision Facing US ire on terror related ineffective measures, Pakistan Foreign Office has been reacting through multiple means. Friday witnessed release of a statement on the \u201cSpecial watch list for severe violations of religious freedom\u201d while its spokesperson suggested the \u201csuspension of security assistance would only serve to [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":35390,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_eb_attr":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true},"categories":[1511],"tags":[1764,36860,36859,42,21,501],"yst_prominent_words":[4763,36856,36847,3703,36852,36854,36853,10492,36858,36846,36842,36851,36845,36850,36844,36857,36849,36855,36848,36843],"ppma_author":[140543],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/d2r2ijn7njrktv.cloudfront.net\/apnlive\/uploads\/2018\/01\/mohammad-faisal.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"authors":[{"term_id":140543,"user_id":4,"is_guest":0,"slug":"apnnewsdesk","display_name":"APN Live","avatar_url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/478eacb893eda88aa6ed8d99b005bf58?s=96&r=g"}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/apnlive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35387"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/apnlive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/apnlive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apnlive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apnlive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35387"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/apnlive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35387\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apnlive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35390"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/apnlive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35387"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apnlive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35387"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apnlive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35387"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apnlive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=35387"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apnlive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ppma_author?post=35387"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<!-- html is corrupted -->