Pakistan urges US to resume aid

Qureshi backs Trump admin’s Taliban outreach

WASHINGTON: Pakistan has pledged to support negotiations with the Taliban to end Afghanistan’s 17-year war as it asked the United States to restore military aid and stop blaming Islamabad for the extremists’ strengths.

Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi visited Washington to explain the Afghanistan strategy of Prime Minister Imran Khan, who has long advocated talks over military action with the Taliban and other insurgents.



A month after Washington cut $300 million in military aid, Qureshi said he found Secretary of State Mike Pompeo “ready to listen” to Pakistan and said he was returning to Islamabad “slightly more hopeful” than before. Qureshi said Pakistan would act “in good faith” to jumpstart diplomacy with the Taliban, whose representatives held a breakthrough meeting in July in Qatar with US representatives in a tentative bid to try to end the longest-running US war.

“Pakistan is willing and Pakistan will use all its influence to do that. We feel that Afghanistan’s stability and peace are linked to ours,” Qureshi said at the US Institute of Peace a day after meeting Pompeo.

But he added: “Contrary to the largely held view here, our influence on the Taliban is diminished.” He said he believed that the Taliban’s shift to negotiations, as well as an unprecedented if temporary ceasefire, was based on the militants’ own calculations.

“Even the Taliban recognise that things have changed in Afghanistan. They can at best maintain a stalemate but those days are gone when they will just go in and take over Kabul.”

Qureshi said Pakistan “cannot and should not be held responsible for the failures in Afghanistan” as he pointed to disunity in the Kabul government as well as corruption. “I have seen or read a lot of criticism and think it’s unfair not to recognise the contributions Pakistan has made to the successes that you’ve had in Afghanistan - and you’ve had successes despite the challenges,” he said.



Calling for renewed cooperation with the United States, Qureshi said: “Cutting off training, not giving precision equipment that could have been used against terrorism — I don’t know to what extent
that will help.” Trump had called for years for a withdrawal from Afghanistan, questioning what more can be achieved from a war that has claimed about 2,400 US lives, but the real estate mogul turned politician decided to stay the course after advice from security officials.

Pompeo, who met PM Imran in Islamabad last month, told Qureshi that Pakistan has an “important role” to play in Afghanistan negotiations, State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert said. Pompeo “agreed that there was momentum to advance the Afghan peace process, and that the Afghan Taliban should seize the opportunity for dialogue,” Nauert said.

The State Department notably did not say whether Pompeo addressed Pakistan’s position on extremism. Qureshi said that the relations between Pakistan and the United States have witnessed a significant headway under the present government.