WASHINGTON: The US State Department has said that Pakistan’s refusal to acknowledge the existence of terrorist safe havens on its soil would not automatically lead to sanctions against the country.

At a Tuesday afternoon news briefing, the department’s spokesperson Heather Nauert also refused to assess the impact of Secretary of State Rex Tillerson’s visit to Islamabad on US-Pakistan relations.

The US media, however, noted that Mr Tillerson was greeted by a mid-level Foreign Office official and US Ambassador David Hale at the military airport in Rawalpindi. This was “a welcome without the pomp that usually accompanies high-level visits”, a US government-funded broadcasting organisation, Radio Liberty, reported.

State Department spokesperson refuses to assess impact of Tillerson’s visit to Islamabad on US-Pakistan relations

“I don’t want to forecast anything that could come in the future,” said Ms Nauert when asked if Pakistan’s claim that there were no safe havens within its borders could lead to US sanctions against the country.

“The secretary said that [on Tuesday] and so I’m just going to have to let his words stand for themselves,” she said.

Mr Tillerson’s visit was the first to Pakistan by a senior official of President Donald Trump’s administration and aimed at improving ties strained by President Trump’s Aug 21 speech in which he asked Islamabad to stop harbouring “agents of chaos” or face the consequences.

Before coming to Islamabad, the secretary made an unannounced stop in Afghanistan, where he reiterated Washington’s commitment to the country.

At a news briefing at the US military base in Bagram, he also said that the US had made “very specific requests” to Pakistan over militancy and Islamabad’s response to those requests would determine how the US-Pakistan relationship would shape up.

In Islamabad, Mr Tillerson met Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi, Army Chief General Qamar Javed Bajwa, and other top officials.

“I think it was a mistake on the part of our folks, the travelling staff and so — and in addition to that, our embassy,” said Ms Nauert when asked why the State Department tweeted that the secretary was holding meetings in Kabul when he was actually at Bagram. “It was just a simple mistake that happened.”

The US media, however, noted that the Afghan government had on Tuesday issued a doctored photo of Mr Tillerson’s meeting with Afghan President Ashraf Ghani, removing all those objects that could link the picture to Bagram.

The media claimed that the Afghan government wanted its people to believe the meeting took place in Kabul, and not at a US military base.

“Not to my awareness. No, no,” said Ms Nauert when asked if the State Department’s tweet was meant to strengthen Kabul’s false claim. “We never like doctored photos, but also understand that perhaps they wanted to present a better image than having met at Bagram.”

Asked why Secretary Tillerson flew to Afghanistan from the Gulf, then back to Iraq before returning to South Asia to visit Islamabad, Ms Nauert said: “There’s a clear security issue in the region, Afghanistan in particular. We’re all aware of that. So for security reasons, we don’t announce some pieces of travel.”

Published in Dawn, October 26th, 2017