The United States will reassess its relationship with Pakistan in the coming weeks and Pakistan has to deny legitimacy to the Taliban until they meet international demand said the US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Monday.
The US Secretary Blinken in the first public hearing in Congress about Afghanistan since the last month Taliban’s return to power said that Pakistan had a number of interests in Afghanistan that are in friction with the United States’ interests.
“It is one that is involved hedging its bets constantly about the future of Afghanistan, it’s one that’s involved harboring members of the Taliban … It is one that’s also involved in different points cooperation with us on counterterrorism,” Blinken said.
To the question asked by lawmakers if it is time to rethink its relationship with Pakistan, the Secretary answered that Administration was looking at it and soon be doing that. He added that we would be looking at the role of Pakistan they had played over the last 20 years and also the role we would want to see them play in the coming years and what would they ask for doing it.
Blinken also called on Pakistan to deny legitimacy to the Taliban unless they meet international demands.
Blinken to the House Foreign Affairs Committee said, “What we have to look at is an insistence that every country, to include Pakistan, make good on the expectations that the international community has of what is required of a Taliban-led government if it’s to receive any legitimacy of any kind or any support,” Blinken told the House Foreign Affairs Committee.
“So Pakistan needs to line up with a broad majority of the international community in working toward those ends and in upholding those expectations,” He added.
Blinken said that Pakistan’s policies had been detrimental on some occasions and in support of our interests in others.
