Daily Times

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s Foreign Office is believed to have decided to continue talking to the State Department in order to defend its existing position on the US demand of taking decisive action against Haqqani Network.

The contact with American administration was never broken, said Foreign Minister Khawaja Asif while talking to Daily Times. He said that communication lines were open and Pakistan’s Embassy in Washington DC was having regular interactions at different levels of US administration.

On the question about the possibility of blocking the Ground Lines of Communications (GLoCs), commonly known as NATO supply route, Foreign Minister Khawaja Asif told Daily Times that it was not the focus of discussion at the moment. “I hope that the situation does not reach to that point, and our point is understood by the US government,” the minister said.

When the foreign minister was asked about whether a decisive action against Haqqani Network was in the offing, he said that Pakistan had already removed safe havens from North Waziristan in line with the US’ earlier demand. “We have taken action against all proscribed organisations without any discrimination and still ready to do it if the US provides us any actionable intelligence about the whereabouts of Haqqani Network members or any other militant group.”

According to the diplomatic sources who spoke to Daily Times, Pakistan had shown utmost restraint even after several provocations recently by the White House. They confirmed that Foreign Office was in touch with different organs of US administration, including but not limited to the State Department.

Sources in the Foreign Office indicated that the US demand of taking action against groups like LeT/JuD, Afghan Taliban and the Haqqani Network had now been reduced to just one of these groups. One source at senior level confirmed that the State Department had struck off LeT/JuD and Afghan Taliban from the earlier list of demands for action. Considering this, it is very likely that both the countries would soon reach some middle ground.

Pak-US tensions had reached a new low when, on the morning of January 1, US President Donald Trump sent a tweet that most Pakistanis found offensive. He had tweeted: “The United States has foolishly given Pakistan more than 33 billion dollars in aid over the last 15 years, and they have given us nothing but lies & deceit, thinking of our leaders as fools. They give safe haven to the terrorists we hunt in Afghanistan, with little help. No more!”

An official of the US National Security Council claimed later on the same day that the US did not plan to spend the $255 million in FY 2016 foreign military financing for Pakistan – an indication of suspension of the military aid to Pakistan. The next day, State Department placed Pakistan on its Special Watch List for ‘severe violations of religious freedom’, which gave an impression that Pakistan was being punished for what President Trump had accused it of, using the human rights ploy. While the local media readily started airing aggressive responses after the Foreign Minister tweeted minutes after Trump’s tweet, promising a befitting response, the foreign office kept a relative calm. The Foreign secretary, while delivering a lecture in Karachi, said that despite recent antagonistic statements by the US leadership, Pakistan believed in engagement with the US to resolve issues.

A majority of Pakistan’s strategic and diplomatic elite seems to have a consensus that Pakistan needed to put its own house in order while keeping a dignified posture in response to the current situation developed in last one week.

Talking about the possible options that Pakistan might like to pursue, Gen (r) Mahmud Ali Durrani, who served as Pakistan’s ambassador to the US from 2006 to 2008 and as Pakistan’s National Security Adviser from 2008-2009, said that Pakistan needed to quietly break away from all US aid, but before doing that it had to put its own house in order. He said that our relations with US had been based on mistrust ever since the latter came to Afghanistan post 9/11. “We have been whole heartedly focussed on Indian presence in Afghanistan while US had other goals. There was very little common ground to begin with”, said Gen (r) Durrani.

About the possibility of the GLoCs blockade like the post Salala situation in 2011, Gen Durrani said that if we do it this time, we should be ready for the funds to be cut off. It would not only be at the level of the US government alone, rather the US might influence other bilateral and multilateral donors as well as international financial institutions, he added.

Although, he said, we can survive without American money, a lot needs to be done to reach that point, in terms of addressing the confusion to deal with political instability, poor governance and weak economy.

According to the norms of international law, no land locked country can be blocked from access by the neighbouring states having coastlines.

Ahmar Bilal Sufi, a renowned lawyer and expert on international law, however, is of the view that Pakistan can invoke ‘retorsion right’ permitted under the international law in case a state feels its national security under threat. Even by invoking this right, only the military supplies could be blocked, Sufi said.

About Pakistan’s designation in the special list by the US government, Sufi said that it was domestic list of the US meant for guiding its own policy having little practical impact on Pakistan’s status other than naming and shaming Pakistan.

However, it was important for Pakistan as a responsible state to try and manage to take its name out of that list, he added.

He said that Pakistan needed to engage with the State Department leaving aside any other organ of the US government be it White house or any other organ.

Considering the calm in key chambers of Foreign Office at Islamabad, it is safe to report that Pakistan is looking at the situation more pragmatically than being reactive to the provocation by Trump’s White House.

Published in Daily Times, January 9^th 2018.