NEW YORK, June 09 (APP): The United States has stopped asking for military bases in Pakistan for counterterrorism operations in Afghanistan following Islamabad’s refusal to provide them, the Voice of America (VOA) has reported.
In a dispatch from Islamabad, VOA Correspondent Ayaz Gul reported he had discussed the issue with senior Pakistani officials who said Islamabad had formally conveyed to the United States that no bases will be provided after all international troops exit war-torn Afghanistan and the U.S. side has stopped raising the issue, senior Pakistani officials said.
The correspondent said that during his interaction with “several top Pakistani government officials”, who are privy to a flurry of recent high-level bilateral talks, they shared some details Tuesday of the discussions “on condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to publicly engage with media”.
“Yes, they [U.S. officials] have had conversations and we have told them we don’t want any terrorism whatsoever, but no bases possible. They have stopped raising bases issue with us,” a Pakistani official, who deals with national security matters, was quoted as saying by VOA.
Since U.S. President Joe Biden announced in mid-April that all American troops will be out of Afghanistan by September 11, his national security team has been reaching out to regional allies to arrange for military facilities needed to gather intelligence and carry out counterterrorism strikes if the turmoil-hit nation descends into another round of civil war after U.S. and NATO troops pull out.
U.S. Central Intelligence Agency Director William Burns made a previously unannounced
visit to Pakistan in late April, where he is said to have spent an entire day meeting with his Pakistani counterpart and the Army Chief, General Qamar Javed, Pakistani officials confirmed Tuesday, according to VOA.
A security official with knowledge of the visit said that in meetings with the CIA chief, there was “no mention at all” of hosting American bases in Pakistan, “because it is next to impossible for us.”
The official, according to VOA report, said both sides discussed counterterrorism cooperation, however, and the Americans sought “our help, but we told them Pakistan would like to fight terrorism “in its own way.”
U.S. Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin and Secretary of State Antony Blinken also repeatedly have spoken to Gen. Bajwa by phone, while National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan held a meeting late last month in Geneva with his Pakistani counterpart, Moeed Yusuf.
Both sides have released few details of their high-level interactions, raising speculation about the nature of the talks and the fate of future bilateral ties.
During Monday’s White House press briefing, VOA asked Sullivan about the engagements with Pakistan, but he declined to get into the details of the negotiations.
“We have had constructive discussions in the military, intelligence, and diplomatic channels with Pakistan about the future of America’s capabilities to ensure that Afghanistan never again becomes a base from which al-Qaida or ISIS, or any other terrorist group can attack the United States,” Sullivan said. The U.S, national security adviser stressed, though, that Pakistan was not the only country the Biden administration was engaging with on the subject.
“What I will say is that we are talking to a wide range of countries about how to build effective over-the-horizon capacity, both from an intelligence and from a defense perspective to be able to suppress the terrorism threat in Afghanistan on a going-forward basis,” Sullivan added.