Alwaght- Pakistan says it is reassessing strained ties with the United States, a move that could lead to halting supply lines into war-torn Afghanistan.
Foreign Minister Khurram Dastgir Khan made the remarks to VOA a day before an international task force is to place Pakistan on a terrorism-financing watch list at the urging of US President Donald Trump’s administration.
The Paris-based Financial Action Task Force, or FATF decided in February to include Pakistan in its so-called “gray list” of nations that are not doing enough to curb terrorism financing.
Pakistan denies charges it supports any terrorist groups and rejects “U.S. pressure tactics” as an attempt to blame Pakistan for international failures to end the Afghan conflict.
“We have reached an impasse in which we have this very strictly formal diplomatic communication is happening, so the US ambassador in Islamabad comes and speaks to us in the Foreign Office and our ambassador in Washington goes and speaks to the State Department. But that’s not really communication, the two countries are not speaking to each other,” Khan said.
He blamed the Trump administration’s “adamant” refusal to communicate for “the low ebb” in mutual ties. “At the moment Pakistan is not being heard. Pakistan is just being vilified and castigated in Washington without being heard at all. It is this situation.”
Khan said at a time when US and Western partners have “abandoned Pakistan to terrorism” and continue to ignore his country’s “unprecedented” sacrifices in fighting terrorist groups, Islamabad’s traditional ally China has stood by it and brought billions of dollars in historic direct Chinese investment.
In January there were reports that Pakistan planned to increase the toll tax of containers carrying military hardware and weapons for US-led NATO troops in Afghanistan.
The government in Islamabad charges $2,500 per NATO container. The trucks use national highways from the southern port city of Karachi to Torkham and Chaman crossings on the Pakistani-Afghan border.
In 2011, Pakistan stopped NATO supplies for several months after an aircraft of the Western military alliance killed over two dozen Pakistani soldiers in an area close to the Afghan border.
