America has 'true friendship' with PM Shehbaz and CDF Munir, says US War Secretary Pete Hegseth

United States Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth has lauded Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and Chief of Defence Forces and Chief of the Army Staff Field Marshal Asim Munir for their role in the US-Iran peace negotiations, saying that Washington and Islamabad are developing a “true friendship”.

“I mentioned India here, but I very easily could have mentioned Pakistan and the role that the field marshal and the prime minister are playing in peace negotiations,” he said while responding to a question at the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore.

“I think an unexpected development and a true friendship [are] developing there, which I think is important.”

The remarks highlight a significant improvement in US-Pakistan ties over the past year, particularly Washington’s engagement with Pakistan’s military leadership. At the same time, relations between the United States and India have faced occasional friction, with New Delhi continuing to reject Trump’s claims that he helped secure the ceasefire that ended the May 2025 conflict between the two South Asian rivals.

Despite his praise for Pakistan, Hegseth reaffirmed India’s importance to US strategy in the Indo-Pacific. In his speech to the summit, he described India as a “critical anchor” for regional balance and said the country was modernising its military to “carry its share of the security burden, particularly in the Indian Ocean”.

The United States remained committed to co-producing weapons with India, he added.

Responding to a question about India’s long-range missile capabilities, Hegseth said both India and Pakistan perceived security threats from each other and were therefore likely to continue developing missile systems as part of their deterrence strategies.

Relations between Pakistan and the US hit rock bottom in 2011 after the US raid in Abbottabad that killed Al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden. They improved somewhat in 2020, when the US acknowledged Pakistan’s role in facilitating the Doha Agreement with the Afghan Taliban.

However, with President Joe Biden's arrival in 2021, ties entered a diplomatic freeze once again. They were relegated to the sidelines for much of his term as the Biden administration leaned on India to counter China’s growing influence in the region.

Relations between the two countries have reached a new high under President Trump’s second term. In March 2025 — weeks after Trump’s second inauguration — Pakistan arrested and extradited to the US an Islamic State-Khorasan (IS-K) operative, Mohammad Sharifullah, who was accused of helping plan the 2021 suicide bombing outside Kabul airport that killed 13 American soldiers.

That prompted Trump to praise Pakistan at the start of his second term. “I want to thank especially the government of Pakistan for helping arrest this monster,” Trump said in his first address to Congress during his second term.

Diplomatic engagement between the United States and Pakistan reached new heights after Trump helped broker a ceasefire between Pakistan and India during their brief war.

Since then, leaders from both countries have exchanged cordial gestures and praised each other’s leadership on international platforms. PM Shehbaz even nominated President Trump for the Nobel Peace Prize in recognition of his mediation efforts.

Trump, in turn, has frequently praised PM Shehbaz and Pakistan’s military leadership, notably describing CDF Munir as his “favourite field marshal”.

Building on this positive momentum, Islamabad now seeks to translate the goodwill into tangible economic benefits by pursuing a more favourable trade agreement with Washington, including tariff concessions and expanded market access for Pakistani exports.

Most recently, after a war broke out between the US and Iran in February this year, Pakistan emerged on the international stage as a peace broker. Islamabad brokered a two-week ceasefire between the United States and Iran on April 8, followed by critical talks in Islamabad attended by senior delegations from both countries on April 11 and 12. However, neither side was able to reach an agreement to bring the conflict to an end.

Since then, the two sides have exchanged proposals and counter-proposals in an effort to find common ground and resume a second round of direct talks aimed at ending the conflict.