It\u2019s been a week since the United States called for the \u201cimmediate re-arrest\u201d of Lashkar-e-Taiba chief Hafiz Saeed, threatening Pakistan with \u201crepercussions\u201d, but the terrorist mastermind remains free and has launched an improbable bid to have himself struck off UN list of terrorists.<\/p>\n
Gen John Nicholson \u2014 the top US general in Afghanistan \u2014 on Tuesday noted that more than 100 days have passed since President Donald Trump\u2019s South Asia strategy put Pakistan on notice and demanded it stop sheltering terrorists, but \u201cwe haven\u2019t seen those changes yet\u201d.<\/p>\n
Frustration with Pakistan has been rising, and the \u201crepercussions\u201d threatened by the White House was the most explicit expression of it yet. Speculation about options for the threatened repercussion, which the White House has not explained, has ranged from stripping Pakistan of its status as a major non-NATO ally \u2014 bestowed in 2004 in exchange for support in Afghanistan \u2014 to declaring it a state sponsor of terrorism.<\/p>\n
Pakistan\u2019s continued obduracy despite public appeals and threats from the US hasn\u2019t gone unnoticed. \u201cThere is very little patience in this White House and the administration for Pakistan and it must be careful not to waste it,\u201d an official said on condition of anonymity.<\/p>\n
Asked about the timeline given to Pakistan for re-arresting Saeed, a spokesperson for the National Security Council of the White House told Hindustan Times: \u201cWe will be discussing (this issue) with the Pakistanis in private\u201d.<\/p>\n
There is speculation that defence secretary James Mattis might be the one to carry out this \u201cprivate\u201d discussion when he visits Pakistan, likely to take place next week.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe might as a former military man and a general have a heart to heart with Pakistani generals and impress upon the need to step up their counter-terrorism measures,\u201d said a South Asian diplomat.<\/p>\n
Two months after Trump\u2019s South Asia strategy was announced, Mattis had told lawmakers that the US would \u201ctry one more time to make this strategy work with them, by, with and through the Pakistanis, and if our best efforts fail, the president is prepared to take whatever steps are necessary\u201d.<\/p>\n
And asked if withdrawing Pakistan\u2019s status as a major non-NATO ally could be among the options being considered to deal with Pakistan, he had said, \u201cI am sure it will be\u201d.<\/p>\n
Gen Nicholson\u2019s remarks from earlier in the week capture well the latest thinking on Pakistan in the American leadership. Asked if Pakistan\u2019s behaviour has changed since the unveiling o the South Asia strategy, Nicholson, said, \u201cIn terms of changes thus far this year, again, policy was announced (on) August 21, it\u2019s now a hundred days later. So, no, we haven\u2019t seen those changes yet.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve had a lot of senior-level engagement \u2014 secretary of state (Rex Tillerson), Gen (Joseph) Votel (who heads the US central command, which deals with Pakistan). We\u2019ve had senior delegations from the state department and national security council travel over there as well. They\u2019ve all met with the Pakistani leadership.<\/p>\n
\u201cPakistani leadership has come to Kabul and met with President (Ashraf) Ghani. They identified certain steps that they were going to take. We\u2019ve not yet seen those steps play out.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
It\u2019s been a week since the United States called for the \u201cimmediate re-arrest\u201d of Lashkar-e-Taiba chief Hafiz Saeed, threatening Pakistan with \u201crepercussions\u201d, but the terrorist mastermind remains free and has launched an improbable bid to have himself struck off UN list of terrorists. Gen John Nicholson \u2014 the top US general in Afghanistan \u2014 on […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":11788,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[87],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11787","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11787","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11787"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11787\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11789,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11787\/revisions\/11789"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11788"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11787"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11787"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11787"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}