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WASHINGTON: The Trump administration believes in extensive high-level commitments to rebuild its ties with Pakistan, replacing the structured dialogue introduced by the Obama administration, says a senior US official.<\/p>\n
In a recent briefing in Washington, the official also welcomed the establishment of a direct line between the Directors General of Military Operations of the Indian and Pakistani armies and urged them to use it.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe structured dialogue was a diplomatic architecture created under the Obama administration. And so, that is how the Obama administration approached its relationship with Pakistan, "the US official said when asked if Washington had plans to revive its structured dialogue with Pakistan.<\/p>\n
"If you look under the Trump administration, we have had extensive high-level commitments and certainly the visit of Prime Minister Imran Khan to Washington proved it," the official added.<\/p>\n
The Obama administration had established several platforms to involve Pakistan, which included talks at the ministerial and official level in Washington and Islamabad several times a year. There was also a separate forum for conversations between the military.<\/p>\n
However, the Trump administration minimized its contacts with Pakistan in its first year, but the commitments resumed when Washington sought Islamabad's support to hold direct talks with the Afghan Taliban. And earlier this year, President Donald Trump received Prime Minister Khan at the White House and pledged to expand political and commercial ties with Pakistan.<\/p>\n
The two leaders had another meeting outside the UN General Assembly at the end of last month and pledged to strengthen bilateral ties.<\/p>\n
\u201cBased on the work we have done together to try to promote a negotiated political agreement in Afghanistan, we have been able to expand our relationships. We are seeing how, in particular, we can expand our commercial and investment relationship, \u201dsaid the US official. "And those contacts continue."<\/p>\n
When asked if Pakistan was going in the right direction to discourage terrorism, the official said: \u201cWe have seen positive steps from Pakistan. For example, under the action plan of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) that required Pakistan to take 27 actions to avoid being included in the agency's so-called blacklist.<\/p>\n
In response to questions about President Trump's offer to mediate between India and Pakistan in Kashmir, the official said that in his recent meetings with the prime ministers of India and Pakistan, Trump "directly discussed Kashmir."<\/p>\n
"He is certainly prepared to play a mediation role if both countries request it," the official said, noting that India rejects external mediation. "But certainly the United States will continue to encourage an environment that allows for constructive dialogue."<\/p>\n
The official said that although the United States understood the position of India "but that does not mean that the United States is not actively encouraging a dialogue to take place and that a constructive dialogue environment is established between the two countries."<\/p>\n
When asked if Washington supports India's position that there can be no dialogue with Pakistan until Islamabad takes the measures that New Delhi wants it to take, the official said: "We believe it is important that Pakistan take sustainable and irresistible measures against the terrorism".<\/p>\n
Despite these reservations, "it is also possible to maintain a dialogue and we encourage countries to participate as two nuclear powers that coexist," the official added.<\/p>\n
In response to another question about Trump's mediation offer, the official said: "The basic point is that the president personally engages with the leaders of both countries."<\/p>\n
Such a commitment, the official said, was important in dealing with a possible conflict between India and Pakistan. \u201cThe president has had meetings and phone calls. They have welcomed their commitments to them, and we will certainly encourage steps that could lead to a constructive dialogue \u201dbetween India and Pakistan, the official added.<\/p>\n
Commenting on some low-level local elections held in Kashmir, held in India this week, the US official said that these "very local elections" could not be an alternative to restoring normalcy.<\/p>\n
"With the leaders of the main political parties in Kashmir under house arrest, the question is … the restoration of the political process and when those leaders will be released," the official said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have urged that they be released immediately. There are no charges filed against them. It will be important that a true dialogue is developed so that political leaders in Kashmir can meet and participate in the political process. \u201d<\/p>\n
Published on Dawn, October 28, 2019<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/pre>\n<\/pre>\n Source: https:\/\/www.dawn.com\/news\/1513339\/us-looking-for-fresh-start-in-ties-with-pakistan<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" WASHINGTON: The Trump administration believes in extensive high-level commitments to rebuild its ties with Pakistan, replacing the structured dialogue introduced by the Obama administration, says a senior US official. In a recent briefing in Washington, the official also welcomed the establishment of a direct line between the Directors General of Military Operations of the Indian […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":10519,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[11077],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10518","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-newspaper"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/umang.pk\/en_us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10518","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/umang.pk\/en_us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/umang.pk\/en_us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/umang.pk\/en_us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/umang.pk\/en_us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10518"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/umang.pk\/en_us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10518\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/umang.pk\/en_us\/wp-json\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/umang.pk\/en_us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10518"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/umang.pk\/en_us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10518"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/umang.pk\/en_us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10518"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}