IT is good to note that the US State Department has come out with a realistic and reassuring statement that Islamabad has taken positive steps in the right direction as regards the crackdown on terrorists. It ruled out any hot pursuit of Taliban militants into Pakistan.

The US State Department spokesperson at his press briefing in Washington the other day is also reported to have said that US Vice-President Mike Pence and Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi during their recent meeting in Washington had discussed America’s South Asia strategy, adding that Pakistan could play a critical role in bringing the Afghan Taliban to the negotiating table.

America’s another Pentagon official, while talking to a news agency, has categorically said that there is no change with regard to respecting the territorial sovereignty of Pakistan, and the US troops in Afghanistan would not be entering Pakistan if they saw Taliban forces going across the border into Pakistan.

The Pentagon official has made quite a welcome and assuring statement in the context of tense Islamabad-Washington relations. As Pakistan is committed to eliminating terrorists, militants and extremists in all their manifestations from its soil, it will obviously be quite ready, on being informed by the US, to take on the terrorists if they enter Pakistan from Afghanistan.

Aamer Najmee

Lahore

Published in Dawn, March 25th, 2018