Pakistan, US ties

Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto Zardari is undertaking a visit to the US this week. He is going there primarily to attend the ministerial meeting on Food Security being hosted by the US and the UN in New York, but will also meet his American counterpart on the sidelines. The conference is taking place against the backdrop of the ongoing Russia-Ukraine conflict that has disrupted the supply chains raising prices of commodities in the international market.

The invitation of the visit was extended by Secretary of State Antony Blinken in a telephone call to Bilawal – the first between the two since Bilawal joined Shehbaz Sharif’s cabinet. The nearly hour long telephone conversation discussed the whole gamut of relationship between the two countries. The long duration of the call suggests eagerness on both sides to reset their troubled relationship.

The ties between the two countries have remained tense despite Pakistan’s role in ensuring the safe exit of the US-led foreign forces from Afghanistan in August last year. What has further dampened the chances of any improvement in the ties was the allegations by ex-PM Imran Khan that he was ousted from power as part of a US plot through a vote of no-confidence. The Biden Administration has denied the allegations but the ousted PM is adamant that the US was behind his removal since he was pursuing an independent foreign policy.

The basis of Imran’s allegations was a diplomatic cable that Pakistan’s then Ambassador to Washington Asad Majid sent to the Foreign Office in early March. The cable details a conversation between the Pakistani envoy and US Assistant Secretary of State for Central and South Asia Donald Lu. Imran has presented the contents of the secret diplomatic cable as evidence of a foreign plot against his government. Imran says the US was not happy with his trip to Moscow at a time when the Russian President was preparing to invade Ukraine. On top of that President Joe Biden has never spoken to ex-PM Imran, something that also irked the cricketer-turned politician.

The reason Biden had been reluctant to speak to Imran since the US exit from Afghanistan was that he kept giving statements criticising American policies. He even described the US exit as “people of Afghanistan breaking the shackles of slavery”. One western diplomat said such statements were unnecessary and only meant to “rub salt into the wounds of the Americans”. It is believed that the country’s military leadership even advised Imran not to give such public statements as they could only complicate Pakistan’s external relationship. But Imran never paid heed to the advice and kept targeting the West, particularly the US. Because of this reason, the high-level contact between the PTI government and the Biden Administration remained virtually suspended. So when Bilawal meets Blinken in New York this month, this would be the first high-level contact between the two sides since September last year.

The Pak-US relationship has remained transactional, meaning Washington only warmed up to Islamabad when it needed its support, particularly for its strategic and security interests. Against this backdrop, what can be expected from the Blinken-Bilawal meeting? The US, despite Pakistan’s desire to expand the ties beyond security, is still primarily focusing on counterterrorism and security cooperation particularly with regard to Afghanistan. The US alone cannot be held responsible for the security-driven ties. The fact remains Pakistan has not done much to enhance its cooperation with the US beyond security prism. American diplomats often say it sounds sweet when Pakistan’s leaders say they are seeking a shift from being geo-strategic to geo-economics but in reality they have no roadmap or vision to implement that policy. Bilawal’s meeting with Blinken may be an icebreaker but is unlikely to lead to any dramatic shift in the bilateral ties.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 16^th, 2022.

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