ISLAMABAD: US Ambassador Donald Blome met Pakistani Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar on Thursday and said the South Asian nation’s prosperity and security remained a ‘top priority’ for Washington.
Blome’s comments come amid a spike in militant attacks in Pakistan and while its finance chief is in discussions with the International Monetary Fund in Washington on a potential follow-up program to its nine-month, $3 billion stand-by arrangement.
“US Ambassador Donald Blome met today with Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar to discuss recent events in the region,” Acting US Mission Spokesperson Thomas Montgomery said. 
“Ambassador Blome conveyed the United States’ commitment to working with the government and people of Pakistan, underscoring that prosperity and security for Pakistan remains a top priority for the United States.”
Pakistan went to the polls on February 8 in a vote marred by a mobile Internet shutdown on election day, arrests and violence in its build-up and unusually delayed results, leading to accusations that the vote was rigged. 
However, the US has repeatedly said it will work with the new government of Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, though it has expressed concerns about reported election irregularities and urged a probe.
Although defense and key foreign policy decisions are largely influenced by Pakistan’s powerful military, Sharif will have to juggle relations with the US and China.
Islamabad has close economic ties to both the nations, which has put it in a tricky position as the two countries have embarked upon a costly trade war.
“From our perspective it has to be an and-and discussion,” finance minister Muhammad Aurangzeb said in an interview this week when asked how the Sharif government plans to conduct its trading relationships with the world’s two largest economies.
“US is our largest trading partner, and it has always supported us, always helped us in terms of the investments,” he said. “So that is always going to be a very, very critical relationship for Pakistan.”
“On the other side, a lot of investment, especially in infrastructure, came through CPEC,” he said, referring to the roughly 1,860-mile-long China-Pakistan Economic Corridor designed to give China access to the Arabian Sea.
Aurangzeb said there was a “very good opportunity” for Pakistan to play a similar role in the trade war as countries like Vietnam, which has been able to dramatically boost its exports to the US following the imposition of tariffs on some Chinese goods.
“We have already a few examples of that already working,” he said. “But what we need to do is to really scale it up.”
Militancy has also spiked in recent months, creating a major challenge for the new government, with religiously motivated groups like the Pakistani Taliban as well as ethnic separatists showing an enhanced ability to hit high-value targets.
In an attack last month that has so far been unclaimed, a suicide bomber rammed a vehicle into a convoy of Chinese engineers working on a hydropower project at Dasu in the northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, killing five Chinese nationals and their Pakistani driver. 
The Mar. 26 assault was the third major attack in little over a week on China’s interests in the South Asian nation, where Beijing has invested more than $65 billion in infrastructure projects as part of its wider Belt and Road initiative.

ISLAMABAD: Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar said on Thursday Pakistan had pitched an “epic menu” of investment projects worth $30 billion to Saudi Arabia during a visit this week by the Kingdom’s foreign chief, adding that Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi would visit Islamabad from April 22-25.
Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud was in Islamabad earlier this week where he said Riyadh would be “moving ahead significantly” to invest in projects in the South Asian nation. His visit followed a meeting in Makkah between Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in which the Kingdom had pledged to expedite $5 billion in investments.
Speaking to journalists at an informal meet-and-greet on Thursday afternoon, Dar said Pakistan had pitched projects worth $30 billion to the Saudi delegation, which would “take time” to materialize. 
“It’s a process, it doesn’t happen overnight,” the foreign minister said. “We have given them a big epic menu to select [from]. After that their expression of interest has been indicated. On that, we will get details on [April] 28, so it takes time. But all vibes are very positive.”
Dar said PM Sharif had invited the Saudi crown prince to visit Pakistan during their meeting in Makkah earlier this month:
“He has very kindly accepted the invitation. The timing of the visit will obviously be sorted out between diplomatic channels of the two countries.”
Responding to a question about a planned visit by Iran’s Raisi to Pakistan, Dar said it had been in the works for “weeks and months.”
“He is coming. The visit is on the cards on 22, 23, 24 [April] and we are preparing fully for this.”
Dar also said Afghan Interim Foreign Minister Mawlawi Amir Khan Muttaqi had invited him to visit Afghan when the two leaders spoke on the telephone last month.
No country has recognized Taliban rule since they seized power in August 2021, after the Western-backed government collapsed as the last US-led international troops departed following two decades of war.
When asked if he would accept Muttaqi’s invitation to visit Kabul, Dar responded: 
“By not interacting we will achieve nothing … so my own fundamental thinking is this, but obviously it [visit] is subject to clearance by the prime minister and MOFA [ministry of foreign affairs] advice that at the appropriate time we will definitely visit.”
Dar also spoke about tensions in the Middle East as the Israeli military has pledged a response to Iran’s retaliatory strikes last week for a suspected Israeli airstrike on its embassy compound in Damascus on April 1. 
Israel and its allies mostly shot down all missiles and drones and there were no deaths, but Israel says it must retaliate to preserve the credibility of its deterrents. Iran says it views the matter as closed but will retaliate again if Israel does.
“Our policy guidelines are about peace, we don’t want any confrontation, we want a peaceful resolution, we want a Gaza solution as soon as possible,” Dar said when asked about the possibility of escalation. 
“We want a ceasefire in Gaza, we want a Palestinian permanent state.”