United States Says It's Better To Work With Pakistan To Fight Against Terrorism

The State Department of the United States has said that in their view it is a better option to work with Pakistan to fight against terrorism in the vicinity of South Asia. While it also made it very clear that declaring Pakistan a sponsor state of terrorism is not a wise idea.

The aforementioned statement was released following the move in the United States Congress that said America should declare Pakistan a sponsor country of terrorism as there are several statements for its alleged connections with several militant groups.

However, there are some reports swirling in the US media that suggest another story and according to that, the newly elected president Trump and his administration have the proposal of backing the congressional move under consideration.

The matter was brought in highlights at the news briefing last week at the State Department where John Kirby told the media that Barack Obama and his administration always preferred to work with Pakistan to fight against terrorism because it continues to believe this was the right way to beat terror. Not to mention, Obama administration is competing its final tenure at the White House next year in January and has been friendly with Pakistan.

According to Kirby, US routinely discusses with its Pakistani counterparts about the importance of continued focus as well as energy on the counterterrorism efforts and the terrorism threat. Moreover, its discussions with the country always give emphasis to the necessity of combating the long-term terrorist who continued to engage in terrorism activities. Mr. Kirby added United States focuses on the aforementioned matter along with focusing the fact that it wants to see Pakistan's efforts for expending on it, and that’s not going to change.

John Kirby was asked if Obama and administration were going to support congressional move and will be part of the signature campaign that is recently initiated by American-Indians across the United States.  Mr. Kirby also refused to talk further about it saying he wasn't going to get into a discussion on this question.

According to the official from US State Department, though he wouldn't guess how the Trump administration is going to deal with the issue once he in the White House, he believes that the long-term focus of the United States on the importance of two-way regional and successful counterterrorism operations with Pakistan wouldn't have any changes.

He said there's a need of South Asian countries to gather their resources to combat terrorism. The US is keenly interested to see each country in the South Asia expending a notable deal of energy along with efforts and strong leadership to fight against terrorism as it believes this menace wouldn't change either.

Upon a question about Trump's election campaign statements and their possible affect on the policies, Mr. Kirby said he just cannot speculate about the upcoming time and so he wouldn’t like to do that.

Donald Trump had given various statements during his pre-election campaign that though were different in form but all weren't negative and didn't necessarily hint at an antagonistic change in the US policy towards Pakistan in his administration.

Another statement of newly elected president suggested his interest in playing the role of a “mediator" between the Pakistan and India as he said he'd do that if it's necessary. He meant If US could get both the countries along; he would be honored to do it as it'd be a great achievement. He said if both the countries wanted him to be the arbitrator, he'd love to be that. He had expressed his views about India and Pakistan in an interview with the Hindustan Times.

Another statement from Trump says Pakistan is a very important country for the United States as it has nuclear weapons. Talking to Fox News earlier this year, Trump said he would favor to keep about 10,000 American arms in Afghanistan as it is located in the neighborhood of Pakistan which owns nuclear power.