Foreign minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi will meet with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Friday as Pakistan seeks to deescalate U.S.-Iran tensions that have rocked the region already facing volatility with Kashmir crisis and Afghan security challenges.
Qureshi’s diplomatic mission to emphasize containment of the U.S.-Iran crisis started with his talks in neighboring Tehran. He then traveled to Riyadh, a close ally of Pakistan.
During his three-day visit, Qureshi will also meet with National Security Adviser Robert O’ Brien as another crisis on Pakistan’s border heightens its concerns.
But the Iran situation is not the only area of concern for Pakistan. Washington and Islamabad have been working to push Afghan peace efforts on Pakistan’s western border.
World map spotlighting the Middle East Image Credit: Free Map
On Pakistan’s eastern frontier, a repressive Indian crackdown on Kashmir has heightened Pakistan-India tensions since August last year when New Delhi unilaterally changed the status of the territory it administers.
The latest flare-up between the U.S. and Iran – in the wake of attack on U.S. embassy in Iraq and America’s killing of Iranian general Qassem Soleimani – has caused further consternation for Pakistan, which shares a long border with Iran in its southwest. Islamabad has had strategic alliance with Saudi Arabia but also has mostly good ties with Iran, making it harder for it to carry out the delicate diplomacy.
“The objective is to support efforts for deescalation and resolution of differences and disputes through political and diplomatic means. The Foreign Minister’s visit to the U.S. is part of these endeavors,” Pakistan’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement.
Pompeo last week talked to Pakistani army chief Gen Qamar Javed Bajwa, who has been given another three years, to discuss the situation as Iran crisis unfolded.
Now, the foreign ministry says, Qureshi is visiting Iran, Saudi Arabia and the U.S. on the direction of Prime Minister Imran Khan to urge restraint in the face of dangers to the region and beyond. Pakistan has long complained of the devastating implications of Afghan war in the form of militancy, refugees influx and drugs trade and fears much trouble from a conflict breaking out on its Iran border.
Afghan refugees sit outside their tent in Islamabad, Pakistan Image: UNHCR/A Shahzad
But the U.S.-Pakistan ties, which have only recently begun to improve with the Trump Administration’s restoration of military training program for Pakistan, will also be a chief subject at the State Department meeting.
“The Foreign Minister, while reviewing full spectrum of bilateral relationship, will underscore the value Pakistan attaches to a broad-based, long-term and enduring partnership with the U.S in line with the vision of the leaders of the two countries.”
Pakistan is also looking to make use of it Gwadar deep sea port – in Balochistan province bordering Iran – which this week started handling Afghan transit trade.
On Kashmir, the Pakistani minister will brief his interlocutors on the prevailing situation in what Islamabad calls Indian occupied Jammu and Kashmir and which India calls part of its union.
Especially, Qureshi will speak about the “prolonged sufferings of the Kashmir is caused by India’s unilateral and illegal actions of 5 August 2019.”
The Trump Administration has expressed concern over India’s harsh measures in Kashmir but has avoided publicly condemning PM Narendra Modi’s hard line approach to the longstanding dispute. President Trump has offered to mediate on Kashmir as Washington looks to have close cooperative ties with both Pakistan and India.
Pompeo is expected to underscore the importance of Pakistan’s help toward bringing peace and stability to Afghanistan, where the U.S. maintains thousands of troops. But any exacerbation in U.S.-Iran tensions will likely to complicate Afghan peace efforts.
President Trump has in the past expressed desire for U.S. disentanglement from Afghanistan, the theater of the longest running war in American history, and has also steered away from further escalation with Iran, which fired rockets at Iraqi bases housing U.S. troops but also said it does not war with the United States.
