ISLAMABAD: Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi said on Wednesday a bill moved in the United States' Senate seeking to assess Islamabad’s role in Afghanistan before and after the Taliban takeover was aimed at exerting internal political pressure on President Joe Biden's administration.

The comments come amid a debate in Pakistan, the US and the Western media on the Afghanistan Counterterrorism, Oversight, and Accountability Act, which aims to address outstanding issues related to the Biden administration’s “rushed and disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan.”

The bill calls for a comprehensive report on who supported the Taliban during America’s 20 years in Afghanistan, helped the group in capturing Kabul in mid-August and supported the insurgents’ offensive on Panjshir Valley, the last part of Afghanistan that was still holding out against their rule until early this month.

In his reaction, the Pakistani foreign minister said the US was "in a state of trance" after having seen all its resources and superior technology fail in Afghanistan.

"There is also internal politics. Do not forget that the Biden administration has its opponents sitting in the Congress," Qureshi said in comments televised on Geo News channel.

"Considering this an opportunity, they want to mount pressure on them [Biden administration] politically. They must be concerned for sure, they also want to obtain information, but they also have the motive to pressure the government."

He said the Americans were focused on Afghanistan, but efforts were being made to link Pakistan to their failure in the Afghan war.

The Pakistani foreign minister said the bill was moved by Republican senators and Islamabad would wait and see whether it was supported by the Biden administration.

"Pakistan has cooperated with the US on every occasion," he said. "If the Ghani government laid down arms and fled from there [Afghanistan], then how is Pakistan responsible in it."

Despite being allies in the war on terror, Pakistan and the United States have had a complicated relationship, bound for decades by Washington’s dependence on Islamabad to supply its troops in Afghanistan but plagued by accusations that Pakistan was playing a “double game.” Islamabad denies the accusations.

On Wednesday, Pakistani Interior Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed also said Islamabad had not provided military assistance to the Taliban.

“We will help our Afghan brothers if humanitarian crises develop in Afghanistan, we are not providing military help to them. This is all rubbish,” Ahmed said. "US is accusing us that we facilitated Taliban, but we only facilitated them to bring them to the table for talks in Doha."

The Doha talks yielded an agreement that became the grounds for last month’s US military withdrawal from Afghanistan. The US itself and the international community have recognized Pakistan as being key in bringing the Taliban to the negotiating table.

On Wednesday, Pakistan’s foreign office also said the US senators' bill was “completely unwarranted” and “inconsistent” with the spirit of US-Pakistan cooperation.