ISLAMABAD: A US official in London dismissed the perception on Friday that the absence of direct communication between US President Joe Biden and Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan implied ailing bilateral relations between the two countries.
President Biden, who assumed the top executive office of his country earlier this year, has remained mired in diplomatic engagements, though he has not made a phone call to the Pakistani prime minister even after his administration is trying to figure out how to deal with the situation in Afghanistan after ordering a pullout of US forces.
Several senior US officials have otherwise recognized Pakistan’s significance to the emerging situation in the region, with some of them urging the administration in Islamabad to exercise its influence with the Taliban and convince insurgent group to deescalate violence in its neighboring country.
“We don’t see relations with Pakistan through one office or one administration,” Dawn quoted Zed Tarar, a spokesperson for the US State Department, as saying during a meeting with Pakistani correspondents in London.
“They are based on bilateral respect,” he continued. “I don’t know the logistics of why the phone call has not taken place, but I can say that the US-Pakistan relationship is an old one.”
The spokesperson denied that the absence of direct communication between the two top leaders implied that Washington was trying to coldshoulder Pakistani authorities.
“I would not read such a message into it,” Tarar said. “If you see our overall relationship, we have several engagements and are constantly in communication. Senior Pakistani officials are talking to their US counterparts, and we are announcing that in a transparent manner.”
“If we start going down the road of ticking boxes of invites and phone calls,” he continued, “it would be silly especially without looking at the broader picture.”
Tarar maintained the United States and Pakistan had tremendous confluence of interest and that was not likely to change in the foreseeable future.
Asked about the situation in Afghanistan, he denied that Washington was abandoning the war-torn country and said its “diplomatic assistance to Afghanistan will continue.”
He noted that the US wanted Pakistan to play a positive role in its neighboring state since it was not in Islamabad’s interest to “see Afghanistan in a civil war.”