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The Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Monday summoned the U.S. Deputy Chief of Mission and conveyed a demarche regarding a joint statement issued by Washington and Delhi last week.
According to a statement issued by the Foreign Office, the demarche conveyed Pakistan’s “concerns and disappointment at the unwarranted, one-sided and misleading references to it” in the joint statement. “It was stressed that the United States should refrain from issuing statements that may be construed as an encouragement of India’s baseless and politically motivated narrative against Pakistan,” it added.
The demarche further emphasized, read the statement, that counter-terrorism cooperation between Pakistan and the U.S. had been progressing well and that an enabling environment, centered around trust and understanding, was imperative to further solidifying their bilateral ties.
Last week, U.S. President Joe Biden and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi issued a joint statement on the latter’s trip to Washington in which they demanded Islamabad take steps to ensure that Pakistani soil is not used in “launching terror attacks.” The statement also called for action against extremist groups allegedly based in Pakistan, such as the Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohammad, as well as action against perpetrators of attacks such as the 2008 siege of Mumbai and the Pathankot incident.
Earlier, while addressing the National Assembly, both Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari and Defense Minister Khawaja Asif had similarly rejected the joint statement, with the former urging global superpowers to not to make “terrorism a victim of geopolitics.” Asif, meanwhile, had lamented that terrorism had found roots in Pakistan because of its alliance with the U.S. in the war on terror.
The U.S. State Department on Monday, during a press briefing, acknowledged Pakistan’s measures to counter terrorism, with spokesperson Matthew Miller noting Islamabad had taken “important” steps to push back terrorist groups in line with the completion of its Financial Action Task Force action plans.
Stressing that the Pakistani people have suffered tremendously from terrorist attacks over the years, he said the U.S. remained consistent on the importance of Islamabad continuing to take steps to permanently disband all terrorist groups. “And we will raise the issue regularly with Pakistani officials, and will continue to work together to counter mutual terrorist threats,” he added.