A US State Department official has said that all issues including Kashmir have to be resolved between India and Pakistan. “We hope that this visit conveys a clear message to Pakistan that the global community is deeply concerned about its support and sponsorship of terrorists”, said Swarup.
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When asked for her reaction, former Governor of Alaska and Republican Sarah Palin said it would be better for American foreign policy as “from Pakistan, you can literally see India, Afghanistan and China and so it would be easy to keep an eye on them”.
At talks in Washington on Thursday, US President Barack Obama and Pakistan’s Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif pledged “to promote peace and stability throughout the region and to counter all forms of extremism and terrorism”.
For the first time, Pakistan committed to take “effective action” against Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT), an Islamic terrorist group based in Pakistan that India blames for an attack by suicide commandos on Mumbai in 2008 in which 166 people died.
He claimed this visit would help broaden the Pak-US ties beyond security issues to education, economy and defence cooperation.
About the new initiatives decided between Pakistan and the USA, he asserted both the countries have agreed for a clean energy partnership to produce 3,000 megawatts of electricity.
Aziz said access to the United States markets, Pakistan’s participation in bidding process of USA defence contracts, Shale gas and defence production cooperation are among the initiatives in the pipeline.
“It is not only an issue of Kashmir”, he said.
The joint statement also named, among other groups, the Haqqani Network that Indian and United States intelligence believe was responsible for an attack on its embassy in the Afghan capital Kabul in the same year.
Sharif, it said, outlined the actions that Pakistan is taking under the National Action Plan to ensure that the Taliban – including the Haqqani Network – are unable to operate from the soil of Pakistan. It also expressed concern at the violence along the Line of Control.
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“In this regard, we made it clear that Pakistan is already striving for the same in its own interest and as moral obligation”, he concluded. “Given Pakistan’s history of clandestine and illegal activity on the nuclear side, obviously, implications of the assertion by the Pakistan Foreign Secretary have to be carefully considered”, he said.
