The United States has asked Pakistan to expel terrorists, especially the Taliban leaders, operating from terror safe havens within its soil, a top Trump administration official said Tuesday.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve had a number of discussions with our Pakistani partners on expectations for change and expelling terrorists from areas in which they\u2019ve been allowed to operate,\u201d deputy secretary of state John Sullivan told members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee during a Congressional hearing on Afghanistan.<\/p>\n
He was responding to questions from lawmakers expressing concerns over Pakistan\u2019s approach fighting terrorism.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey (Pakistan) understand what we expect…Our suspension of security assistance continues until we see more evidence that they are in fact taking action,\u201d Sullivan said.<\/p>\n
He said the US has been in discussions with Pakistan but there has been not a \u201csufficient amount of action\u201d from it against terrorists.<\/p>\n
Senator Bob Corker, Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, supported the South Asia Policy of the Trump administration.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis administration has rightly drawn a clear line with Pakistan, suspending security assistance of over a USD billion as long as Islamabad continues to shelter Haqqani, and other terror groups that target innocent civilians, as well as the US and allied forces,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Corker had blocked the sale of F-16 fighter jets to Pakistan during the previous Obama administration.<\/p>\n
He said this \u201cpointed approach\u201d is designed to confront Pakistan\u2019s \u201cduplicity\u201d and its actions to provide safe harbour to the \u201cgreatest threat to our efforts in Afghanistan\u201d.<\/p>\n
Last month, the Trump administration had suspended nearly $2 billion in security assistance to Pakistan because of its inability to take actions against terror groups.<\/p>\n
Senator Ben Cardin, Ranking Member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said such a policy might not work.<\/p>\n
\u201cDoes the administration really believe that a simple suspension of security assistance is going to bring about a lasting commitment by Pakistan to drop support for the Afghan Taliban or the Haqqani Network. It hasn\u2019t before,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve tried it several times over the past 16 years. I have little confidence that such behavioural change is coming. So are we prepared to do more to elicit the behavioural change we want or is this just more about the same?\u201d Cardin asked.<\/p>\n
Sullivan said the Trump administration may consider lifting the suspension, when it sees decisive and sustained actions from Pakistan to address the US concerns, including targeting all terrorist groups operating within its territory, without distinction.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe US is committed to doing our part to reduce tensions in the region in ways that address Pakistan\u2019s legitimate concerns,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Sullivan said the US opposes the use of terrorist proxies by any country against another country anywhere in the world.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe use of terrorism has no place in a rules-based international system. We hope the Pakistanis will also help to convince the Taliban to enter into a peace process,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Sullivan told lawmakers that it was the assessment of the US that Pakistan has not done enough to expel elements of the Taliban that have been operating in sanctuaries in Pakistan and easily able to cross the border into Afghanistan.<\/p>\n
Pakistan, he said, certainly have the ability to urge the Taliban to do come to the peace talks.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat we believe they do have the ability to do also is to expel them from sanctuaries in their country. They may not be able to actually drive them to the negotiating table, but they can help and they can eliminate sanctuaries in their country where they currently operate,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Noting that Pakistan has suffered grievously from terrorist attacks, Sullivan said what the US is looking for from Pakistan is more support against terrorist organisations.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The United States has asked Pakistan to expel terrorists, especially the Taliban leaders, operating from terror safe havens within its soil, a top Trump administration official said Tuesday. \u201cWe\u2019ve had a number of discussions with our Pakistani partners on expectations for change and expelling terrorists from areas in which they\u2019ve been allowed to operate,\u201d deputy […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":21153,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[87],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-21152","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\/21152","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=21152"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21152\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21154,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21152\/revisions\/21154"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21153"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21152"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21152"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21152"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}