ISLAMABAD: Pakistan on Monday summoned the United States Deputy Chief of Mission and demarche was made to him regarding the “unwarranted, one-sided and misleading” references to it in the recent US-India joint statement.
“The US Deputy Chief of Mission was called to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs this evening and a demarche was made to him regarding the US-India Joint Statement, issued on 22 June 2023,” Foreign Office spokesperson Mumtaz Zahra Baloch said.
She said that Pakistan’s concerns and disappointment at the “unwarranted, one-sided and misleading” references to it in the Joint Statement were conveyed to the US side.
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“It was stressed that the United States should refrain from issuing statements that may be construed as an encouragement of India’s baseless and politically motivated narrative against Pakistan,” she said.
She further stated that it was also emphasized that counter-terrorism co-operation between Pakistan and US had been progressing well and that an enabling environment, centred around trust and understanding, was imperative to further solidifying Pakistan-US ties.
Earlier on June 22, the top Indian diplomat in Islamabad was also summoned to the Foreign Office and strong protest was lodged with him with over the references given to Pakistan in the joint statement.
Through the joint statement issued following the meeting between Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and US President Joe Biden, “the US and India called on Pakistan to take immediate action to ensure that no territory under its control is used for launching terrorist attacks.”
“The United States and India stand together to counter global terrorism and unequivocally condemn terrorism and violent extremism in all its forms and manifestations. President Biden and Prime Minister Modi reiterated the call for concerted action against all UN-listed terrorist groups including Al-Qa’ida, ISIS/Daesh, Lashkar e-Tayyiba (LeT), Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM), and Hizb-ul-Mujhahideen.”
It added that the two leaders “strongly condemned cross-border terrorism, the use of terrorist proxies and called on Pakistan to take immediate action to ensure that no territory under its control is used for launching terrorist attacks.”
“They called for the perpetrators of the 26/11 Mumbai and Pathankot attacks to be brought to justice. They noted with concern the increasing global use of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), drones and information and communication technologies for terrorist purposes and reaffirmed the importance of working together to combat such misuse.
They welcomed the cooperation between our two governments on counterterrorism designations and homeland security cooperation, including in intelligence sharing and law enforcement cooperation, and called upon the Financial Action Task Force to undertake further work identifying how to improve global implementation of its standards to combat money laundering and the financing of terrorism,“ the joint statement further read.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2023