ISLAMABAD: US State Department Spokesperson Ned Price said on Thursday that Washington was looking for ways to advance its partnership with Islamabad.
US-Pakistani ties have deteriorated over the past few years under the government of former prime minister Imran Khan, who was a strident opponent of America’s war on terror and Pakistan’s role in it.
After Khan’s ouster in a no-confidence vote in April, Pakistan’s new government has indicated it would seek a new engagement with the US.
Last month, Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari met US Secretary of State Antony Blinken in New York, where he participated in a United Nations Security Council meeting on food security.
“Secretary Blinken had an opportunity to sit down with his Pakistani counterpart to meet him face-to-face in his position for the first time. It was a very good, constructive discussion,” Price said in a press briefing.
“Pakistan is a partner of ours, and we will look to ways to advance that partnership in a manner that serves our interest and our mutual interests as well.”
In an interview after the meeting, Bhutto-Zardari said his country must “continue to engage with the United States at all levels.”
He told the Associated Press that the Pakistan-US relationship in the past had been “too colored by the events in Afghanistan, of the geopolitical considerations, and it’s time for us to move beyond that to engage in a far broader, deeper and more meaningful relationship.”
