ISLAMABAD: In a significant development, the Trump administration on Thursday appeared to be making a fresh bid for mending the frayed bilateral ties by making telephone calls to caretaker Prime Minister Nasirul Mulk and Chief of the Army Staff Gen Qamar Bajwa.

It started with US Secretary of State Michael Pompeo’s call to Gen Bajwa and within 24 hours Vice President Mike Pence was on the phone felicitating Mr Mulk on assuming the premier’s office.

The common message and emphasis in the two calls was the needed cooperation for peace in Afghanistan.

A statement issued by the PM Office said Mr Pence congratulated the prime minister, conveyed good wishes of President Donald Trump, and hoped that he would successfully undertake the task of holding elections in the country.

The two further “agreed upon the importance of strengthening bilateral relations as well as pursuing the common objective of achieving peace and stability in Afghanistan”.

Relations between the two countries had been particularly tense since President Trump last August announced the new strategy for South Asia and Afghanistan, which was very critical of Pakistan’s role in Afghanistan and the region in general. The start of this year was even more turbulent when Mr Trump in his New Year tweet accused Pakistan of “lies and deceit” after which Washington also suspended security assistance for its one-time ally. More lately the two sides imposed reciprocal restrictions on each other’s diplomats.

Contacts between the two sides, meanwhile, had also become confined to each other’s envoys in respective capitals.

Days before the two calls, military spokesman Maj Gen Asif Ghafoor in a media conference signalled that Pakistan was ready to use all sorts of leverages that remained with it to persuade the Taliban to join the Afghan negotiation process.

Gen Ghafoor had importantly said that Pakistan wanted the US forces to succeed and go back from Afghanistan “with a notion of victory and success”. The message, analysts believe, was meant to dispel US fears that Pakistan wanted to undermine American efforts in Afghanistan.

The message seems to have been picked up in the US and was reciprocated with the two important calls from senior Trump administration leaders.

Moreover, the gestures from the US follow unilateral announcement of ceasefire by President Ashraf Ghani after an edict by the Afghan clergy for a truce. “Afghanistan’s President, Ashraf Ghani, has announced his forces will halt offensive operations next Tuesday until June 20 to encourage the Taliban to seek a peaceful resolution of the war,” the Voice of America earlier reported.

It was not clear if it was coincidental that amidst these high-level contacts from the White House and State Department, Bill Gates, the billionaire entrepreneur and philanthropist who recently declined a White House top job, also called Gen Bajwa to “acknowledge efforts by Pakistan Army for successfully eradicating polio from Pakistan”, according to the Inter-Services Public Relations.

Published in Dawn, June 8th, 2018