Daily Times

Washington DC: “The United States considers Pakistan’s enemies as its enemies. The death of TTP chief Mullah Fazalullah in a drone attack speaks volumes about the cooperation between the two countries,” says United States Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asia Alice Wells.

In conversation with this correspondent after a meeting of House Foreign Affairs Committee at Capitol Hill, Ms Wells said, “We have not halted our high-level contacts with Pakistan, we continue to have these channels of communications between our leaders because we want to find the way to work productively with Pakistan.”

“We have historic partnership with Pakistan. We have a track record of success fighting terrorists, and with the reported death of Mullah Fazalullah, you can see that America considers enemies of Pakistan as its enemies,” she said, adding, “We are now working to get Taliban on the negotiation table.”

When asked about her recent visits to Pakistan, Ms Wells said the US was still waiting for decisive action against Haqqani Netwrok and leaders of Afghan Taliban. “Once again, I will underscore, as noted by General Votel, that without Pakistan’s support it will be challenging to accomplish our goals in Afghanistan. Our objective is to find a way to work to address strategic interests of both countries and to advance our mutual interest by insuring that either the Taliban are expelled from Pakistan or arrested, unless they are willing to come to negotiations,” she noted.

Ms Wells welcomed the recent high-level contacts between Afghan and Pakistani leadership and hoped that the exercise would yield positive results. When asked about the Taliban offer to US for direct talks, she said that the real test was to figure out if they (Taliban) were prepared for talks with their fellow Afghans. “We can be a part of any negotiation.”

During the House Foreign Affairs Committee meeting, most members of the Congress had suggested to withhold aid to Pakistan until decisive action against Haqqani Network and the Taliban. Ms Wells told committee members that USD 1.6 billion including USD 900 million of Coalition Support Fund (CSF), were already being withheld. She further said that the US was working to end sanctuaries enjoyed the Taliban inside Pakistan for decades and to encourage fighting elements within the militant outfit to consider local arrangements to de-escalate the levels of violence.

“Pakistan and Afghanistan entered into a constructive dialogue to develop Afghanistan-Pakistan Action Plan for Peace and Solidarity (APAPPS), an initiative to which we have given full support. However, despite some positive indicators, we have not yet seen Pakistan take the sustained or decisive steps that we would have expected to see 10 months after the announcement of the South Asia strategy, including arrests or expulsion of Taliban leaders,” Ms Wells said, in his opening statement to the Foreign Affairs Committee.

The Committee was later told that Taliban and few terrorists groups were getting benefits from narcotics smuggling and the US, with its partners, was trying to target poppy fields and big names involved in the dirty business.

Published in Daily Times, June 22^nd 2018.