US President Donald Trump has put Pakistan on notice for providing safe haven to the Taliban and other militant groups, Vice President Mike Pence has said, warning that the country has much to lose if it does not stop harbouring terrorists on its soil.<\/p>\n
Pence\u2019s remarks came during an unannounced trip to Afghanistan to assess ground realities in the war-torn country. During his visit yesterday, Pence held meetings with top Afghan leadership to hear from them the progress on the implementation of Trump\u2019s new South Asia Policy.<\/p>\n
Trump while announcing his South Asia Policy in August had criticised Pakistan for not doing enough to combat terrorism.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor too long Pakistan has provided safe haven to the Taliban and many terrorist organisations, but those days are over. President Trump has put Pakistan on notice,\u201d Pence told American troops at the Bagram airbase in Afghanistan.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs the President said, so I say now: Pakistan has much to gain from partnering with the US, and Pakistan has much to lose by continuing to harbour criminals and terrorists,\u201d the vice president said, issuing another stern warning to Pakistan.<\/p>\n
Pakistan today reacted sharply to Pence\u2019s remarks.<\/p>\n
Foreign Ministry\u2019s spokesperson said Pence\u2019s statement was at \u201cvariance\u201d with the \u201cextensive conversations\u201d Pakistan had with the US administration.<\/p>\n
\u201cAllies do not put each other on notice. On notice should be those factors responsible for exponential increase in drug production, expansion of ungoverned spaces, industrial scale corruption, breakdown of governance, and letting Daesh gain a foothold in Afghanistan,\u201d the spokesperson said.<\/p>\n
\u201cAlso focus should be on creating peace and reconciliation mechanisms. Finally, externalising blame should be put on notice.\u201d<\/p>\n
Speaking at the Bagram airbase, Pence said Trump has unleashed the full range of American military might.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve lifted the restrictions that limited the effectiveness of our armed forces, so you can, as the President has said, fully and swiftly wage battle against the enemy,\u201d Pence said.<\/p>\n
The Trump administration, he said, has given troops new authorities to directly target terrorists no matter where they hide.<\/p>\n
Trump has empowered battlefield commanders with the freedom and flexibility they need to win, Pence said, adding the president\u2019s new strategy is already bearing fruit all across Afghanistan.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
US President Donald Trump has put Pakistan on notice for providing safe haven to the Taliban and other militant groups, Vice President Mike Pence has said, warning that the country has much to lose if it does not stop harbouring terrorists on its soil. Pence\u2019s remarks came during an unannounced trip to Afghanistan to assess […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":15212,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[87],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15211","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\/15211","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=15211"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15211\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15213,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15211\/revisions\/15213"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15212"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15211"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15211"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15211"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}