ISLAMABAD: Special Assistant to Prime Minister on National Security and Strategic Policy Planning Dr. Moeed Yusuf said on Friday that Pakistan’s foreign policy was guided by its economic interests and his country was looking at its relationship with the United States from the same perspective.
“Our goal is to get to a truly bilateral relationship with the US,” Yusuf told a ceremony arranged by a local think tank, Tabadlab, to launch a policy brief on the US-Pakistan ties via a video link. “No third country lens should be applied to this relationship. This has been the tragedy of this relationship for the past two decades and before that as well.”
He said there had been a shift in his country’s diplomatic approach and the international community should recognize that.
“We are decidedly on an economic security paradigm now which essentially means that we are focused on working with our geo-economic location more than the geostrategic element of that location,” he continued. “We want to operate as the melting pot for positive global economic interests.”
Discussing the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, Yusuf said it was not just about north-south connectivity, though Islamabad wanted economic dividends from its partnership with China.
He noted that his country was “also open to eastward connectivity” with India while maintaining that the option was closed for now “because of where India stands.”
The prime minister’s advisor said that Pakistan was looking for “development partnerships, not assistance,” and was open to every country in the world.
“It’s critical that the world updates its narrative about Pakistan, especially the West where Pakistan has been the whipping boy for the longest period,” he added.
Meanwhile, the policy paper prepared by Tabadlab, a local think tank, pointed out that American policies were undergoing a “significant shift” in South Asia since Washington was striving for greater strategic alignment with India.
It also pointed out that US withdrawal from Afghanistan, along with other geopolitical realities, would require continuous American engagement with the region, particularly with Pakistan.
“Building a closer relationship with Pakistan offers the US alternative pathways of furthering its own national interests such as contending with the growing influence of China,” it noted. “A more comprehensive engagement with Pakistan would also enable the US to further other goals of mutual interest with Pakistan as well as other regional countries, such as preventing conflict, terrorism, economic instability and contending with the threat of climate change.”
The policy brief also observed that Pakistan’s role in negotiating peace in Afghanistan provided unique opportunities to policymakers in Islamabad to proactively explore means for establishing “a comprehensive and resilient bilateral relationship with the United States.”
