ISLAMABAD: Defense Minister Khurram Dastgir has attributed the ongoing rift in United States-Pa
kistan bilateral ties to Washington’s singular focus on military partnership, rather than an overarching engagement with Pa
kistan as two democratic states with mutual concerns.
He made this observation in an exclusive interview with the Voice of America (VoA).
As a consequence, he said, Islamabad’s ties have massively deepened with traditional ally China, and intense re-engagements were also bringing Pa
kistan closer to Russia.
Pa
kistan has been a major recipient of military assistance as a non-NATO US ally in the now 17-year-old war in Afghanistan, has been repeatedly criticised for its alleged support for the Taliban and Haqqani networks carrying out attacks on international and Afghan for
ces.
In January, US president Donald Trump suspended military assistance to Islamabad on the grounds that the US had received ‘nothing but lies and deceit’ in return. That withering attack has plunged a traditionally rollercoaster bilateral relationship to historic lows.
&
#8220;We are still very serious in maintaining our engagement with the United States… Unfortunately, the Trump administration has chosen to focus on the transactional part of the relationship,” Das
tgir said, while referring to US military assistance for counterterrorism operations.
A renewed diplomatic reengagement with Pa
kistan has been underway since Trump suspended the aid
but it has yet to produce desired results on the ground in terms of eliminating sanctuaries inside Pa
kistan, say US officials.
Das
tgir says despite US adverse actions, Pa
kistan has not &
#8220;impeded or blocked” its ground and airlines of communications being used for ferrying vital supplies to international troops in Afghanistan. But he asked whether a productive partnership with the US is still possible under the circumstances.
&
#8220;You can’t have a country whom you would accuse of being deceitful and simultaneously being a major non-NATO ally. So, the contradictions in 2018 have become too large,” noted the minister.
Dastgir rejected allegations as &
#8220;illogical” that Pa
kistan harbors &
#8220;safe havens” and cited the US military’s latest assessments that the Taliban controls or contests a large chunk of the Afghan territory.
&
#8220;[Nearly] half of the country is a safe haven but your [US] focus is on remnants in Pa
kistan…When you don’t control 45% of Afghanistan and don’t know what is going on there, who is there, who is moving in and out of that safe haven, but you keep blaming us,” he lamented.
Pa
kistan maintains that years of counterterrorism operations have cleared its land of all terrorist groups and in the process the country suffered more than the US, with tens of thousands of casualties caused by retaliatory militant bombings.
Moreover, officials insist persistent security concerns scared away much-needed foreign investment for overcoming a crippling energy crisis in Pa
kistan and inflicted billions of dollars in economic losses.
&
#8220;That was the time when Pa
kistan’s democracy needed consolidation and it was at that time that the US chose to begin pulling away,” Das
tgir said of the year 2013 when his party – Pa
kistan Muslim League-Nawaz -won the elections and took power.
The quantum of US military and economic aid had become &
#8220;insignificant” by the time 2018 rolled around, he said, and explained why China has since increased its influence in Pa
kistan.
&
#8220;China acted first and Pa
kistan needed support very seriously and grievously. Now that we have it five years later, we have nearly resolved the energy crisis, we have nearly resolved the terrorism crisis. So, now that people of Pa
kistan and the government of Pa
kistan, which represents the people, look back, we see China as standing with us and the US is constantly receding.”
Beijing has invested billions of dollars in the last three years under a massive cooperation deal with Islamabad, known as China-Pa
kistan Economic Cooperation, or CPEC. China is building infrastructure projects and power plants under CPEC.
The unprecedented Chinese investment will have added 12,000 additional megawatts of electricity in the national grid by June this year, effectively overcoming the country’s once crippling energy crisis.
Minister Dastgir called for the US to revisit its Pa
kistan approach for a stable and productive partnership.
&
#8220;The US has not made, in our view, a serious effort to engage Pa
kistan as a democracy, and a democracy which has an elected government,” he insisted.
It is widely perceived that the powerful Pa
kistan military directly influences the foreign policy decision making process when it comes to dealing with the US, Afghanistan and archival India.
&
#8220;Yes, the [Pa
kistan] military has its own influence and its own operations. But if this relationship is to become long lasting, if this relationship has to have firm basis it has now to become no longer a military-to-military relationship, which it currently is. It has to become a relationship between two democracies. That is the way forward,” asserted the Pa
kistani defense minister.
Published in Daily Times, March 27th 2018.
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