WASHINGTON: US Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken and Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi spoke on Friday to underscore their desire for a stable and sustainable relationship between the two countries.

Mr Blinken announced the conversation in a tweet he posted on his official site, saying: “Pakistani Foreign Minister S.M. Qureshi and I had a call to underscore our desire for a stable and sustainable bilateral relationship”.

He also mentioned some of the issues the two diplomats discussed. “I look forward to continuing cooperation on the Afghan peace process, tackling COVID-19, supporting regional stability, and other key issues,” he tweeted.

Pakistan’s Foreign Office, meanwhile, in a statement said: “The foreign minister and the secretary of state stressed the need for the two sides to continue close coordination and cooperation to ensure meaningful progress in the peace process.”

It added: “The foreign minister emphasised Pakistan’s commitment to forging a broad-based, long-term and sustainable relationship with the United States that is anchored in deep economic cooperation, regional connectivity and peace in the region.”

FO says minister emphasised Pakistan’s commitment to forging long-term, sustainable relationship with US

Later, US State Department’s spokesperson Ned Price also issued a statement, saying Secretary Blinken “spoke today with Foreign Minister Qureshi and underscored the shared desire for a stable and sustainable bilateral relationship”.

The statement, though brief, did include additional information, saying that the secretary and the foreign minister discussed the “importance of continued US-Pakistan cooperation on the Afghanistan peace process following the visit to the United States by Afghan President Ashraf Ghani and Chairman Abdullah”.

Mr Price added that the two top diplomats also highlighted joint efforts to tackle the Covid-19 pandemic, including the United States’ recent donation of 2.5 million Moderna vaccines.

US President Joe Biden had his first face-to-face meeting with the two Afghan leaders at the White House on June 25, making it clear he was determined to withdraw all American troops from their country by Sept 11.

“Afghans are going to have to decide their future, what they want,” the US leader said at an Oval Office briefing, adding that the “senseless violence has to stop”.

President Ghani said he respected Mr Biden’s decision and that the partnership between the US and Afghanistan was entering a new phase.

Speaking to reporters after the meeting, Mr Ghani said Mr Biden had clearly articulated that the US embassy in Kabul would continue to operate and security aid would continue and in some cases move on an accelerated schedule.

Mr Abdullah said in a Reuters interview after the meeting with Mr Biden that stalled intra-Afghan talks on a political settlement to decades of strife should not be abandoned unless the insurgents themselves pull out.

On Thursday, President Biden said at a White House news briefing that he would withdraw all his troops — except those needed to protect the embassy — by Aug 31.

Rejecting the suggestion that the US “should stay in Afghanistan indefinitely”, Mr Biden said the proposal “ignores the reality and the facts that already presented on the ground in Afghanistan when I took office: The Taliban is at its strongest militarily since 2001”.

“Afghanistan remains one of the most unforgiving terrains on the planet,” Mr Biden said while disagreeing with a journalist who suggested that an indefinite US stay could push the Taliban back.

“There is a consensus that no matter what happens after the withdrawal, the Taliban will remain strong,” said Michael Kugelman, a deputy director at The Wilson Centre, Washington, while commenting on the president’s statement.

Mr Kugelman said the decision to withdraw American troops from Afghanistan was “based on the perceived terrorism threat to the US, not on the insurgency’s strength”. He added that Taliban’s recent offensives and territorial seizures were never going to prompt the US to change course and end/slow the withdrawal.

Michael E. O’Hanlon, Director of Research at the Brookings Institution, Washington, said the US intelligence community too “has now joined the chorus of those predicting the violent defeat of the Afghan government within the year”.

He noted that more than 10 per cent of Afghanistan’s districts had fallen to Taliban control since the Biden decision to pull out all forces.

The issue was also raised at a Pentagon news briefing on Thursday afternoon where a journalist asked spokesman John Kirby if Pakistan’s alleged support was one of the historic reasons for Taliban’s resilience.

“We know that the Taliban have been able to use safe havens …to refurbish, retrain, replenish themselves and to plan. And that’s something that we are in constant communication with Pakistan about,” Mr Kirby said.

“[But] it’s too easy to forget that Pakistan itself had become victim to terrorist networks operating out of some of those same safe havens. So, it’s a problem that they share too. And we’re going to continue to work with them about how to close down those safe havens.”

Published in Dawn, July 10th, 2021