WASHINGTON: The latest round of US-Pakistan talks helped the two countries in understanding each other better, Ambassador Aizaz Ahmad Chaudhary said on Tuesday while stressing the need for a close relationship between the two allies.

“It was a positive meeting. It helped both to understand each other’s points of view,” said the Pakistani envoy in a talk on the current security situation in South Asia at the Carnegie Endowment, a Washington think-tank.

“It is a relationship that we value, we want to maintain and we want to strengthen,” he added.

The ambassador insisted that the US and Pakistan both wanted to promote peace and stability in Afghanistan, although they were pursuing different approaches to get there. But this unity of purpose, he said, would bring them together.

Mr Chaudhary also rejected the allegation that Pakistan had a dual policy on terrorism, targeting the terrorists who were against the Pakistani state and allowing those to continue who carried out attacks in Afghanistan and India.

Published in Dawn, December 6th, 2017