Daily Times

Now that the Foreign Minister is in New York, the pressure is on. Shah Mehmood Qureshi is expected to raise the issue of Indian belligerence and the continuing suffering of the Kashmiris in his address to the UN General Assembly at the end of the week. Yet it is his scheduled meeting with US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo that analysts in both countries will be keenly watching.

Even in Washington policymaking circles there has been a sense of unease since the Trump administration decided to further suspend military compensation as part of the Coalition Support Funds (CSF) just days before Pompeo visited Islamabad. For rather than using the opportunity of a new leadership at the Centre to start with a clean slate — the message the US sent was that the Imran Khan government would have to ‘prove’ itself a worthy ally. Less than one month into the job. Thereby underscoring immense American hubris that views the bilateral relationship through a purely unilateral lens.

Things have changed somewhat since then. Not least because Pakistan has found its backbone. No more will it be held hostage to US purse-strings. Or to threats ‘forbidding’ global lending institutions from bailing out this country. Indeed, instead of going with begging bowl in hand to the Americans — a move that would be seen here at home as capitulation to Washington’s diktats as well as admission of all charges of playing a double game on terror — Islamabad has rallied round its ever-growing list of friendly regional allies. Thereby calling the US bluff as it consolidates relationships with China, Saudi Arabia, Russia, Iran and Turkey.

This is something that Trump Town appears to have understood. For the murmurings along its corridors of power suggest that the latter is now mulling unfreezing CSF payments. This is only right and just. Pakistan has sacrificed many, many lives in its role as a frontline partner in the GWOT.

Success for the Foreign minister will be nothing short of securing a public commitment from Pompeo towards this end. This should not be too hard to achieve. After all, the US ought to be eager to tip the balance of power away from those whom it regards as regional adversaries. But here is where Mr Qureshi will have to tread carefully; gently reminding the Americans that relations with Washington and Beijing are not mutually exclusive. In fact, when it comes to South Asian peace and security they can be anything but.

Given the rapid deterioration of Indo-Pak ties, Islamabad would do well to remind the US of long-held charges of New Delhi’s role in funding groups like the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) that have found safe-havens in Afghanistan. This is important. For far too long has this country been viewed as the ‘solution’ to resolving the quagmire next-door without any consideration as to its own security concerns.

Thus the heat is also on for the American side to deliver. Treating Pakistan as an equal partner for peace and geo-strategic cooperation will do much to rebuild the US image here. Though this should not be framed as a goodwill gesture but, rather, as a signal of intent. One that can be built upon by a fully-fledged diplomatic visit to the country as opposed to using Islamabad as a convenient stop-over.

Pakistan has done its part. The rest is up to Washington. At least in terms of joining Islamabad in looking ahead.  *

Published in Daily Times, September 25^th 2018.