Daily Times

The United States Tuesday welcomed the staff-level agreement between Pakistan and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) designed to stabilize the South Asian country’s economy from recent external shocks, saying Washington would continue to support Islamabad through the process.

“Our support for the country’s economic success is unwavering,” State Department Spokesperson Mathew Miller said when asked at his daily press briefing whether the U.S. had played a key role in securing the $3 billion IMF package for Pakistan. “We will continue to engage with Pakistan through technical engagements and continue to strengthen our trade and investment ties, all of which are priorities for our bilateral relationship,” Miller told the correspondent of a private Pakistani television channel.

“We believe Pakistan has a lot of hard work ahead to be on a long-term sustainable path to economic recovery and prosperity but we will continue to stand by them through that process,” he added.

Asked about a recent interview of Pakistan’s Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, Hina Rabbani Khar, in which she said that Islamabad had no appetite to pick a side amid the growing global rivalry between Washington and Beijing, the spokesperson said that the US does not ask nations to make such a choice.

In the interview with POLITICO, an American news website, Ms. Khar insisted, however, that Islamabad was worried about the repercussions of an all-out rupture between the U.S. and China, which would present Pakistan with an unpalatably binary strategic choice. “We are highly threatened by this notion of splitting the world into two blocs,” she said. “We are very concerned about this decoupling … Anything that splits the world further.”

In his response to the question, the State Department spokesperson said, “The United States does not ask Pakistan or any other country to choose between the United States and the PRC (People’s Republic of China) or to choose between the United States and any other country.

“Our relations with Pakistan build on our close People to People ties and we will continue to seek ways to expand our partnership and economic ties, He said.

“Our economic cooperation with Pakistan reflects our vision for the region, as one comprised of nations that are independent, strong and prosperous, and our relationships are based on a spirit of respect and partnership.”