ISLAMABAD: Pakistan can avoid a ‘rupture’ in relations with the United States by helping it stabilise Afghanistan.
This was stated by Dr Moeed Yusuf, associate vice president of the Asia Centre at the US Institute of Peace (USIP) Washington, on Tuesday.
He was addressing a seminar titled: ‘Trump Administration’s Prospective Policy towards Pakistan’, held at the Center for International Strategic Studies (CISS), an Islamabad based think-tank.
Dr Yusuf proposed that Pakistan should act against the Haqqani Network and Taliban in a verifiable manner. He gave an overview of the ongoing reassessment of US policy on Afghanistan by Trump administration and its likely implications for uneasy Pak-US ties. “The policy that will emerge from the process, which has come to be known as the ‘South Asia review’, is expected to have a greater regional perspective,” he said.
Dr Yusuf mentioned reports that Washington could get tougher with Islamabad especially on the issue of terrorist sanctuaries. He said there were divisions within Trump administration on dealing with Pakistan, but one view that was gaining traction among the public was that pressure should be increased on Islamabad for acting against Taliban and Haqqani Network.
Violence has gone up in Afghanistan, where Afghan government is struggling to contain Taliban insurgency. As per UN statistics, there have been 1,662 civilian deaths during the first six months of the year, a majority of which was because of suicide attacks and improvised explosive device blasts. Military casualties have also been shockingly high. President Trump appears to be losing patience with the situation and in one of the review meetings suggested firing of his top commander in Afghanistan Gen John Nicholson.
Pakistan has been blamed for the worsening situation in Afghanistan for not eliminating Haqqani Network and Taliban sanctuaries. Acting Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asian Affairs and Acting Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan Alice Wells, while visiting Islamabad last week, stressed that “Pakistani soil must not be used to plan or conduct terrorist attacks against its neighbours”.
Dr Yusuf warned that a breakdown in bilateral relationship would serve neither country’s interests and advised that ways should be explored to avoid such an undesirable situation. He noted that though neither side wanted a split, any terrorism incident in Afghanistan with American casualties could push the two in that direction.
Published in Daily Times, August 9th 2017.