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ISLAMABAD: The Foreign Office has again rejected US allegations of selectively targeting terrorists and said its counterterrorism operations have been indiscriminate.
“We are fully resolved to fight terrorism and have taken strong measures to this effect. … We have taken indiscriminate and all-out action against terrorists,” FO spokesman Nafees Zakaria said at the weekly media briefing on Thursday.
He was responding to the State Department’s ‘Country Reports on Terrorism 2016’, which had in relation to Pakistan observed that the country did not take adequate action against the Afghan Taliban and Haqqani network and other externally focused groups like Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohammad.
“Pakistan government … failed to take significant action to constrain the ability of the Afghan Taliban and HQN to operate from Pakistan-based safe havens and threaten US and Afghan forces in Afghanistan. The government did not take any significant action against LeT or JeM, other than implementing an ongoing ban against media coverage of their activities. LeT and JeM continued to hold rallies, raise money, recruit, and train in Pakistan,” the report alleged.
The report at the same time acknowledged the progress that Pakistan had domestically made against terrorism and its contribution towards reconciliation in Afghanistan.
Mr Zakaria said terrorists are on the run because of Pakistan’s counterterrorism operations. Some of the terrorists, he said, had taken refuge on Afghan soil because of continuing conflict there, which had left large ungoverned spaces. He recalled that a number of leaders and senior commanders of the Haqqani network and other terrorists had been killed inside Afghanistan.
The spokesman said Pakistan’s counterterrorism effort had been acknowledged by a number of countries, including the US. Recently a congressional delegation headed by Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John McCain praised Pakistani actions, he added.
He said Pakistan wanted peace and stability in Afghanistan. Such a thing was in Pakistan’s interest, he maintained.
“We have always whole-heartedly supported all efforts to that end. We fully subscribe to an Afghan-owned and Afghan-led peace and reconciliation process.”
Responding to a question about the ongoing review of US policy towards the region, the spokesman remarked that “Trump administration’s policy review on Afghanistan is still not complete. We will only be able to comment once the contents of review are shared with us”.
The Pakistan-US cooperation in diverse areas is longstanding, he further said.
Published in Dawn, July 21st, 2017
