ISLAMABAD: Pakistan Friday expressed the desire to build long-term, broad-based, comprehensive and mutually beneficial partnerships rather than having transactional relations with the United States.
Speaking at his weekly media briefing, Foreign Office spokesperson Zahid Hafeez Chaudhri said that Pakistan considers the United States a friend and it wants broad-based relations to achieve “our shared objective of peace and prosperity in the region and beyond”.
“We have repeatedly stated that neither should Pakistan be looked at through the prism of another country, nor should our relations be viewed narrowly. We want to build long term, broad-based, comprehensive and mutually beneficial partnerships rather than having transactional relations,” he said, in response to a question regarding Prime Imran Khan’s recent statement in which he had stated that the US finds Pakistan useful only to clear the mess in Afghanistan.
Chaudhri asserted that both Pakistan and the US have a history of “close cooperative relations”. “This cooperative relationship has served the interests of both the countries. We have convergence of views and interests on a number of key issues including the ongoing Afghan peace process,” he said, adding that both the countries believe that there is no military solution to the conflict in Afghanistan and both want to see peace in Afghanistan.
He added that both Pakistan and the United States support an inclusive, broad-based and comprehensive political settlement in Afghanistan through a process that is owned and led by Afghans themselves.
He said that Pakistan played a key role in facilitating the US-Taliban agreement for peace in Afghanistan in February last year.
However, the spokesperson made it clear that Pakistan will take all such decisions and pursue policies that are in its national interest and contribute to peace and prosperity in the region and beyond.
About the Extended Troika meeting held in Doha on August 11, 2021, he said that the Extended Troika meeting was attended by special envoys of Pakistan, the US, China, and Russia.
He said that the members of the Extended Troika discussed the deteriorating security situation in Afghanistan and explored ways of expediting the intra-Afghan peace talks for achieving an inclusive political settlement and bringing an end to the four decades long conflict in Afghanistan.
Delegations of the Afghan government led by Dr Abdullah Abdullah and Taliban led by Mullah Bradar, also had interaction with the Extended Troika.
He said that the Extended Troika countries broadly conveyed that “there was a need for urgent measures to reduce violence leading to a ceasefire and that there was no military solution to the Afghan conflict.”
He said that the Troika Plus also urged the Afghan sides to put forward their peace plans on priority basis, so that progress is made towards a political roadmap.
He added that the Troika Plus emphasised that there is a need for all sides to respect human rights and not indulge in human rights violations.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2021
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