KARACHI: 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.
US says Pakistan’s prosperity and security remains a ‘top priority’
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US says Pakistan’s prosperity and security remains a ‘top priority’
- Blome’s comments come amid a spike in militant attacks in Pakistan
- Pakistani finance chief has launched negotiations for a new IMF bailout
Pakistan making diplomatic efforts to de-escalate Middle East tensions, FM says
- The statement came as Iran pressed on with a third day of strikes in the Gulf in response to US-Israeli air raids
- Pakistan’s position is clear that all countries must abide by principles of UN Charter, international law, FM says
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan is making diplomatic efforts to de-escalate heightened tensions in the Middle East, Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar said on Monday, amid US-Israeli strikes on Iran and Tehran’s counterstrikes against US bases in Gulf countries.
Tensions escalated across the Middle East on Saturday after coordinated US-Israel strikes killed Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei among other senior Iranian officials. Tehran responded by targeting US military bases in the UAE, Bahrain, Qatar, Kuwait and Jordan. Saudi Arabia said Iran also launched attacks targeting Riyadh and the Eastern Province.
The Iranian missile and drone strikes continued on Monday in retaliation for the ongoing US-Israeli air raids, casting uncertainty over the future of the Islamic republic and heightening the risk of broader instability in the already volatile region.
Speaking at a press conference, FM Dar, who recently returned from Saudi Arabia where he attended an Organization of Islamic Cooperation OIC) meeting on Palestine, said Pakistan is very closely monitoring the evolving situation in Iran and the tensions which are building up in the region.
“These serious developments have taken place at a time when diplomatic efforts were underway to reach a peaceful and negotiated solution to [Iran nuclear program],” he said.
“We are making our full diplomatic efforts and, you know, requesting all parties to de-escalate and to refrain.”
Dar said Islamabad was concerned over a violation of the norms and international law, and the age-old tradition that the heads of state and the government should not be targeted.
“Post-World War II, we all know that these institutions were created to create some international, you know, law and order, and that’s why there was a UN Charter. There are certain conventions which we all are supposed to follow,” he said.
“But things are on ground moving very differently, which obviously is worrisome... The international law must prevail and the conventions must be respected.”
The statement came hours after the Ras Tanura oil refinery in Saudi Arabia sustained limited damage as a result of debris from the interception of two drones in its vicinity, the Saudi Press Agency reported, citing an official source at the Saudi Ministry of Energy.
Several American warplanes crashed in Kuwait on Monday morning but their crew survived, Kuwait’s defense ministry said, as Iran pressed on with a third day of strikes in the Gulf.
Dar said Pakistan’s position has been clear and persistent that all countries must abide by the principles of UN Charter and international law, including respect for the sovereignty and territorial integrity of other states as well as international humanitarian law.
“In my latest conversation with [Iranian] Foreign Minister Abbas Araqshi on 28th of February, I conveyed Pakistan’s condemnation of the attacks and called for restraint and diplomacy and dialogue, which he positively responded,” he shared.
“But on ground, we are seeing that things are not yet settling or easing out.”
Pakistan stands in full solidarity with all its brotherly countries and underscores the need to exercise maximum restraint, according to FM Dar.
“This is a message we have been giving to whosoever prime minister speaks, whosoever I speak, or whosoever Field Marshal Asim Munir speaks to, his counterparts on the defense side,” he said.
