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US Pressures on Pakistan Key for Peace in Afghanistan: MoD
“Pakistan is the main sponsor of terrorism. If the United States does not press Islamabad, peace and stability would not be in Afghanistan,” said Dawlat Waziri, spokesman of MoD.
The United States assured that it does not declare Pakistan a state sponsor of terrorism and desires to work with cooperatively.
US State Department spokesperson John Kirby also said that the United States had full confidence in Pakistan’s capability to protect its nuclear weapons and to prevent terrorists from accessing them.
“I have not seen anything specifically about the… bill and obviously we don’t,” said Mr Kirby when asked if the US government would support a congressional bill and an online petition that seek to label Pakistan a ‘terrorist state’.
“We’re confident that Pakistan has the security controls they need to have in place on their arsenal, and I’d let them speak to that more specifically. I wouldn’t get into that,” said the US official when asked if Washington believed Pakistan could prevent terrorists from accessing its nukes.
In response to a question about Pakistan’s seriousness in combating terrorism, Mr Kirby said terrorism was as much a threat to Pakistani citizens and their children as it was to Afghan and Indian citizens and Pakistan took this challenge very seriously.
“We don’t think for a minute – we don’t believe for a minute that they don’t take the challenges before them seriously or the lives and security of their children,” he said.
The White House on Friday shot down the demand to designate Pakistan a “terrorist state” even as it reiterated its support to India on eliminating safe havens of militants.
When asked about the recent Bill and the online petition against Pakistan that has been gaining traction, United States State Department spokesperson John Kirby said, “I have not seen anything specifically.”
Last month, two US lawmakers had introduced a Bill in the House of Representatives to designate Islamabad a state sponsor of terrorism.
The Bill, known as the Pakistan State Sponsor of Terrorism Designation Act, was moved by Republican Ted Poe and Democrat Dana Rohrabacher.
Bilateral ties between India and Pakistan have deteriorated after the attack on an Indian Army installation in Jammu and Kashmir’s Uri, and lndia launching “surgical strikes” along the Line of Control.
India has accused Islamabad of being involved in the Uri attack, while Pakistan has dismissed the allegations as baseless.