Secretary of Sate Mike Pompeo says the United States expects Pakistan not to provide safe harbor to terrorists on its western border with Afghanistan and that the South Asian country would be held accountable if it failed to do so.
Pompeo was responding to a question about U.S. policy toward Pakistan if it allegedly provides a sanctuary to Afghan Taliban, fighting the Afghan government.
“We had made clear that the U.S. policy with respect to South Central Asia has not changed, that our expectation is that Pakistan will not provide safe harbor to terrorists on their western border – we couldn’t have made that message any more clear – and that Pakistan will be held to account if they don’t achieve that, if they’re not sincere in that effort,” Pompeo said at a State Department interaction with journalists.
Islamabad has rejected the accusation – levelled by the United States and Kabul -and cites its sacrifices and role in eliminating terrorists from its soil.
Pakistan has also often voiced its own security concerns with regard to the militants using the Afghan soil and carrying out attacks inside Pakistan. Islamabad has accused the Afghans of allowing Pakistani Taliban to operate from its territory, and has captured an Indian spy, who, it says, has admitted to plotting terrorist attacks in Pakistan using Afghan territory.
Recently, the United States has acted against the Pakistani Taliban (TTP) operating out of Afghanistan’s Kunar province. Pakistan says Fazlullah – who wanted to impose his own version of Sharia in Swat and orchestrated attack against Malala Yousafzai – was killed in a drone strike in June this year.
The U.S. wants Pakistan to deliver on its promise to help push reconciliation process in the conflict-torn Afghanistan, which held parliamentary elections amid a spate of bombings and loss of civilian lives.
In his remarks at the State Department, Pompeo referred to his recent talks with the new Pakistani leaders and said he conveyed Washington’s policy clearly.
“We don’t believe we can get to the place that everyone wants, right. Everyone wants a reconciliation in Afghanistan, and to achieve that, you can’t have a safe harbor for Taliban, for Haqqani, and for others inside of Pakistan.
“The Pakistani government knows that that’s our view and this administration has already made significant efforts to hold them accountable, and we hope that they’ll achieve the goal that we’ve set out for them,” Pompeo said.
President Donald Trump has suspended security assistance for Pakistan as the relations between the two countries remain strained. But foreign policy and security analysts at a Washington Woodrow Wilson Center colloquium last week said the relationship remains critical to stability of Afghanistan and the entire South Asian region and that cooperation between the countries could provide a way out of troubles in Afghanistan, where other regional players including Russia are also involved.
