Finance Minister Ishaq Dar in an interview with the Wall Street Journal on Wednesday said Pakistan seeks to reset its relationship with the United States (US).
“There seems to be a little bit of a stalemate in the last couple of years,” Dar pointed out in conversation with WSJ correspondent Ian Talley.
Dar, who spoke to the newspaper ahead of his meeting with National Security Adviser Lt Gen H.R. McMaster, said, “We need to remove any ambiguities that we have between each other as friends.”
The WSJ, noting that the Pak-US relationship was “complicated”, reported that Washington still sees Islamabad as critical to its efforts in Afghanistan as the Trump administration intensifies its attacks on the militant Islamic State (IS) group and the Taliban.
In a move signalling a shift in US policy in the region under US President Donald Trump, the American military earlier this month dropped one of its largest non-nuclear bombs on an IS complex in eastern Afghanistan.
The Trump administration is reviewing its policy toward Pakistan, the report said, citing an unnamed White House official.
Ishaq Dar, however, questioned the effectiveness of the US strategy.
“Let's face it, there hasn't been great success in the operations in Afghanistan in the last decade-plus since 9/11,” he said.
“You can't find each one of the Taliban and kill them and then restart. It will take too long, maybe ages,” he said.
Instead, Pakistan believes an 'Afghan-owned, Afghan-led' political solution is probably the ultimate solution, the finance minister said.
“Obviously we have to listen to the new side, the new administration, to see what their thoughts are,” he said.
“I'm sure the new administration will be looking into this. I think we need to sit together and see where the flaws are.”
Dar said the PML-N government had escalated military operations intended to clear out terror networks and fighters in the tribal areas, suffering a series of deadly terror attacks across the country.
Besides expanding those operations, the government is bolstering its border security, including a fencing at critical crossing points, he said.
“We are very keen to contribute whichever way we can to support this peace effort,” he said, referring to the US.
Dar said Pakistan also wants the Trump administration to help resolve the decades-old Kashmir dispute with India.
