Washington,
\nPresident Donald Trump is prepared to take \u201cwhatever steps necessary\u201d against Pakistan if it does not \u201cchange its behaviour\u201d and continues to support terror<\/p>\n
groups, Defence Secretary Jim Mattis has said.<\/p>\n
Mattis also warned Pakistan of global \u201cdiplomatic isolation\u201d and losing its non-NATO ally status if it failed to take action against safe havens to terrorists on its<\/p>\n
soil.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf our best efforts fail, President Trump is prepared to take whatever steps necessary,\u201d Mattis told members of the powerful House Armed Services Committee<\/p>\n
during a Congressional testimony on South Asia and Afghanistan on Wednesday.<\/p>\n
he was asked a series of questions by Congressmen who expressed their frustration on Pakistan not taking action against terror groups.
\nWithout much elaboration, Mattis said the US had \u201cenormously powerful number of options\u201d if Pakistan did not follow through and be a better promoter of<\/p>\n
stability in the region.
\n\u201cRight now, I would like to think we will be successful,\u201d Mattis said. \u201cWith the growing consensus against terrorism, they\u2019ll find themselves diplomatically<\/p>\n
isolated.\u201d
\nThere is an awful lot of advantage to Pakistan of coming online with the international community, and we have to stay focused there, but the penalties are just<\/p>\n
as significant as the advantages if they choose to go a different direction,\u201d he said.
\nBut for right now, the US needs to try one more time to make this strategy work with them by, with, and through the Pakistanis,\u201d he said.
\nWhen Congressman Rick Larsen asked if revocation of non-NATO allies status is on the list of possibilities against Pakistan, Mattis said, \u201cI\u2019m sure it will be.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mattis\u2019 tough talk on Pakistan came as Pakistan Foreign Minister Khwaja Asif is visiting the US as part of efforts to rebuild bilateral ties frayed after President<\/p>\n
Trump accused Islamabad of sheltering terror groups.
\nPresident Trump announced his Afghanistan and South Asia policy in August in which he adopted a tough policy against Pakistan.
\nIn a meeting with Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, Asif defended his country\u2019s role in the war against terrorism.<\/p>\n
He claimed that Pakistan had pursued a zero-tolerance and indiscriminate approach in its campaign against all terrorist and militant groups.
\nHowever, Mattis told lawmakers that while the US is adopting \u201ca whole of government approach\u201d on Pakistan, it is also aligning NATO countries on this.What<\/p>\n
you\u2019re going to see is 39 nations all in the NATO campaign working together to lay out what it is we need Pakistan to do,\u201d he said.
\nWhat we are doing right now is we are aligning what Department of Treasury, Department of Defence, the Intelligence Committee, Department of State, say,<\/p>\n
this is what we must ask Pakistan to do to change its behaviour,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
The Trump administration, he said, is going to use a whole government international effort to align the benefits and the penalties if those things are not done.
\n\u201cPakistan has lost more troops in this fight against terrorists than nearly any country out there. And yet at the same time, as you know, there\u2019s been some<\/p>\n
parsing out where some terrorists have been allowed safe havens. We\u2019re out to change that behaviour and do it very firmly,\u201d Mattis asserted.
\nAs part of this, Mattis said there would be exchange of high-level visits between the two countries.<\/p>\n
Mattis said he and the Secretary of State Rex Tillerson would soon visit Islamabad.
\nWe\u2019re not going to back off. It will start with assistant secretaries coming out of Washington and the National Security staff members going into Pakistan soon<\/p>\n
followed by the Secretary of State,\u201d he said.
\n\u201cI will go in and we have (NATO) Secretary General Stoltenberg\u2019s very clear support for this in his advocacy as the Secretary General of NATO. So we\u2019re going to<\/p>\n
continue to build this up in an international way with a whole of US government argument for the Pakistanis to work in their own best interest and ours,\u201d Mattis<\/p>\n
said.
\nAfter holding talks with Asif, Tillerson on Wednesday said the US is concerned over the future of the government in Pakistan and wants to ensure long-term<\/p>\n
stability in the country.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Washington, President Donald Trump is prepared to take \u201cwhatever steps necessary\u201d against Pakistan if it does not \u201cchange its behaviour\u201d and continues to support terror groups, Defence Secretary Jim Mattis has said. Mattis also warned Pakistan of global \u201cdiplomatic isolation\u201d and losing its non-NATO ally status if it failed to take action against safe havens […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6919,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[87],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6918","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\/6918","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=6918"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6918\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6920,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6918\/revisions\/6920"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6919"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6918"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6918"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6918"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}