US State Department Spokesman
Pakistan and Afghanistan faced shared threat from terrorist networks and the United States want to see improvement in their dialogue and cooperation against their common enemy, a US State Department Spokesman has said.
Asked to comment on a reported statement by the Afghan President, US State Department Spokesman John Kirby said on Friday the United States continues to see that Afghanistan and Pakistan still face a shared threat from terrorist networks.
Kirby’s remarks came a day after an editorial in the New York Times blamed Pakistan for the mess in Afghanistan. Pakistan’s ambassador to the United States, Jalil Abbas Jilani in a rejoinder rejected the editorial saying that the collective failure of the international community was to be held responsible.
Meanwhile the US State Department recently announced that key US Congress members are not prepared to support military aid to Pakistan in the absence of specific actions.
Elizabeth Trudeau, Director of the Press Office, State Department, told reporters ” I will note key members of Congress have been clear they’re not prepared to support U.S. military aid to Pakistan absent some specific actions.”
She was apparently pointing towards the activity of the Haqqani terrorist network using the Pakistani soil as its safe haven.
In response to a question if the State Department willing to certify that or say that the Pakistan is taking enough action against Haqqani Network, Trudeau said ” So we’ve spoken about our views on Haqqani quite a bit as well as what we view Pakistan needs to do. Pakistan has spoken that they will not discriminate against groups. We could encourage them to continue to live up to that.”
