NEW YORK, Feb 2 (APP):Defence Minister Khurram Dastgir Khan has expressed concern over a White House statement saying the U.S. military has been given authority to eliminate militant safe havens in both Pakistan and Afghanistan.
In an interview with the Urdu service of Voice of America (VOA), the defence minister said he takes the statement “very seriously.”
The White House statement was released in an e-mail late Tuesday that listed President Donald Trump’s foreign policy accomplishments during his first year in office.
“President Trump’s conditions-based South Asia Strategy provides commanders with the authority and resources needed to deny terrorists the safe haven they seek in Afghanistan and Pakistan,” the White House statement read.
Reacting to the statement, Khurram Dastgir Khan told VOA, “We want to make it clear to the U.S. that Pakistan is a sovereign country and its sovereignty must be respected.”
“Instead of using these words, which can be interpreted in any way, Pakistan should be consulted,” he said. “Statements like this are taking us away from peace in Afghanistan,” he added.
At a Thursday Pentagon press briefing, Joint Staff Director Marine Corps Lt. Gen. Kenneth McKenzie said the U.S. military doesn’t “contemplate military operations inside Pakistan.”
“Through a variety of measures, we look to gain Pakistani cooperation and assistance as we pursue operations in Afghanistan, but no, we’re not planning to conduct military operations inside Pakistan,” McKenzie said.
Pakistan-U.S. relations have deteriorated rapidly. Last month the Trump administration cut nearly all security aid to Islamabad until the country takes stronger steps to deal with terrorist networks allegedly operating in its territory.
The U.S. has long accused Pakistan of providing safe havens. Pakistan denies the accusation.
According to media reports, U.S. officials are also discussing expanded drone strikes in Pakistan. Since 2004, the U.S. has carried out hundreds of such drone attacks, mostly along the Afghan border in northwest Pakistan. Those attacks had fallen off in recent years.
In his State of the Union address, Trump did not mention Pakistan directly. But he did say he asked Congress to pass legislation to help ensure that U.S. assistance dollars “always serve American interests, and only go to America’s friends.”

BEIJING, Feb 2 (APP):A young and excited Pakistani working as procurement manager at a mega project of China Communication Construction Company (CCCC) in Saudi Arabia has won “Excellent Foreign Youth Employee” award for his outstanding performance.
Abrar Manzoor, selected among130,000 employees from four continents, received this award from Vice President of the Company Sun Ziyu at a ceremony held here on Friday.
The CCCC is the world’s largest construction company and global constructor for different mega projects in countries along the Belt and Road Initiative including Pakistan.
Talking to APP, Abrar, currently working at Jazan Integrated Gasification Combine Cycle Project said that hard work, sincerity and commitment were the basic ingredients for his success.
“If you work hard, you will definitely be noticed, picked up and awarded. This is the basic formula for success,” he added
Abrar living in Saudi Arabia for the last 12 years, felt proud as Pakistani after winning the award.
He appreciated the Chinese people for their hard work and commitment and said that any nation who was not working hard, could not excel in this era.
Responding to a question, he said that since the launch of China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) framework, he anticipated job opportunities in Pakistan and he was thinking to go back to Pakistan to grab this golden chance and take part in the development of the country.
He said that a number of projects particularly power stations were being completed under the CPEC, a flagship project of the Belt and Road Initiative announced by Chinese President Xi Jinping for the shared prosperity of humankind.
He said that because of electricity shortage, the industry was sacrificing but now China has invested heavily in power sector which has brought the life back to normal in Pakistan.
He said that people were getting jobs and they are going for daily life and this was an enormous thing for Pakistani people.” I must commend this great achievement between two friends”.
While commenting on Gwadar port, he said that because of its strategic location, the port would provide a short route and easy access to the Chinese companies to Middle East, Africa and Europe.

WASHINGTON, Feb. 2 (APP):US Deputy Secretary of State John Sullivan said on Thursday that during his recent visit to Afghanistan, the two sides during their discussion focused on the need for continued bilateral discussion between Kabul and Islamabad.

At a press briefing at the US State Department, Secretary Sullivan who just returned from a trip to Iraq and Afghanistan, said in his discussion with the Afghan government, the two sides focused on the relationship between Afghanistan and Pakistan and the need for continued bilateral discussion between them.

“…I also emphasized that the United States must continue to have its bilateral relationship with Pakistan, both on its own terms and with respect to the region including Afghanistan,” he said, and added that the US government has told Islamabad about its expectation with regard to fighting terrorism and to contributing to a lasting and enduring peace in Afghanistan.

Secretary Sullivan, while responding to a question about a recent statement by President Trump that US would not talk to Taliban, said it did not indicate any change in the US’ South Asia policy and Washington would continue to put pressure on Taliban to bring them to the negotiating table where the ultimate resolution would be through an Afghan-led and Afghan-owned peace process.

“One significant change in our policy is it’s conditions-based, not time-based,,, We’re not setting a timeline for a date by which negotiations must begin. The policy is conditions-based.”

During his visit, Secretary Sullivan met with Afghan President Ashraf Ghani, Chief Executive
Dr. Abdullah Abdullah, Foreign Minister Salahuddin Rabbani and other government leaders. He said that the Afghan leadership assured him that despite the recent terrorist attacks, the Afghan government would continue to work to create the necessary conditions to bring the Taliban to the negotiation table and establish an environment for a sustained peace.

NEW YORK, Feb 2 (APP):The recent deadly attacks in Kabul’s heavily protected zones have fueled fresh worries in the ability of Afghan government to provide security and combat the Taliban insurgency, according to American media reports.
“More than 16 years into the American war in Afghanistan, Taliban fighters managed to penetrate one of Kabul’s most tightly guarded landmarks, rampaging through the Inter-Continental Hotel,” The Wall Street Journal correspondent in Kabul said in a dispatch. “Militants stunned the capital twice more in the next 10 days. In all, 141 people were killed, including four Americans,” it said.
“The ferocious attacks” two claimed by the Taliban and one by Islamic State”have cast doubt on optimistic assessments by the U.S. military and Afghan government and raised questions about the pillars of the Trump administration’s strategy: a greater reliance on Afghan security forces, modest increase in the U.S. troops supporting them and stepped-up pressure on Pakistan to cut off support to the insurgents,” WSJ correspondent Craig Nelson wrote.
But the dispatch cited General Joseph Votel, the head of U.S. Central Command, as telling reporters that the increasing violence “does not impact our commitment to Afghanistan” and that victory in the war, America’s longest, was “absolutely” possible.
The administration’s war plan, first announced in August, relies on raising troop levels from about 11,500 then to about 15,000 now, deploying more air power against militants and moving American military advisers back to the front line to train Afghan units and call in air and artillery strikes. Not least, it calls for cutting
But President Donald Trump steered clear of predictions about the war in his State of the Union address on Tuesday, two years after his predecessor, Barack Obama declared in the same forum that the U.S. combat mission in Afghanistan was over. “Our military is no longer undermined by artificial timelines,” Mr. Trump said at the Capitol, “and we no longer tell our enemies our plans.”
In Washington, according to the dispatch, US officials expressed alarm at the January attacks but said it would be unfair to blame the surge in violence on the American strategy for Afghanistan.
“You can’t really judge based on what’s happened in the last 10 days,” a National Security Council representative was quoted as saying in the dispatch. “At this point, we haven’t had enough time to really carry out the full strategy. I don’t think anybody would claim it would change within a period of a few months.”
The carnage in Kabul has roiled already fraught relations between Afghanistan and Pakistan, the dispatch said, noting that Afghan officials have accused Islamabad of direct involvement in the latest attacks.
Pakistani officials have denied the allegations. “Why would we poke the bear with relations with the U.S. already strained?” an unnamed official was quoted as saying.
U.S. officials, according to WSJ, said they had seen direct ties between the attacks and the Pakistani government. But it said the Trump administration is using economic pressure in an attempt to force the country’s leaders to roll up the havens militants use to oversee their fighting in Afghanistan.

WASHINGTON, Feb. 2 (APP):Pakistan and the United States need to collaborate to ensure peaceful democratic transition in Afghanistan, and the Trump administration needs to include non-security considerations in to its South Asia strategy as beefing up fight on the battlefield will not make terrorism go away, security and foreign policy analysts said.

In their separate articles for the online magazine The Hill, Michael Kugelman, deputy director of the Asia program and senior associates for South Asia at the Woodrow Wilson International Center and Shazar Shafqat, a counterterrorism and security analyst, pointed out the escalation in violence in recent weeks that posed deep threat to Afghanistan.

Afghanistan has seen a renewed phase of violence in recent weeks with Taliban militants and ISIS forces wreaking havoc in the war-torn country. More than 130 people were killed in three terrorist attacks claimed by Taliban in addition to attacks carried on by ISIS.

The analysts argued for the need to include political considerations into America’s security-alone approach and the collaboration between Pakistan and the United States, the two old estranged allies which saw their bilateral ties plummeted to a new low after the US State Department withheld security assistance to the South Asian country in the forefront of global war on terrorism.

“Despite any rhetoric to the contrary, United States and Pakistan need to collaborate with each other to ensure peaceful democratic transition in Afghanistan,” wrote Mr. Shafqat, underscoring the facts on the ground that necessitate for the two countries to cooperate for a common goal of fighting terrorism.

“Just as China might not be able to fill the gap if Pakistan chooses to completely distance itself from the United States, the Trump administration should also understand the fact that alienating Pakistan doesn’t help its cause in Afghanistan,” he said. “That might sound like a non-starter to some of the analysts in Washington, but that’s how things work in the obscure geostrategic and geopolitical arena of South Asia.”

Talking about the current status of relationship between Pakistan and the United States, Mr. Safqat noted that the ties “isn’t the lowest it has ever been”, referring to the attack that killed Osama bin Laden and the NATO air strike incident at Salala that killed Pakistani soldiers.

For Mr. Kugelman, the Trump administration has largely focused on security measures in its new South Asia strategy that included additional troops in Afghanistan and ramping up the battlefield operations which are unlikely to achieve the desired end.

“Without incorporating non-security considerations into Washington’s policy toolkit, those means will be insufficient and the ends unachievable. Failing to make these policy adjustments all but ensures that the relentless and resilient Taliban and ISIS will continue to inflict violence on a nation that has suffered far too much of it, and for far too long.”

Mr. Kugelman observed that the US cannot eliminate terrorism by military forces and needs to include diplomatic and economic components that help address dysfunction within the Afghan government and ease tensions with regional players.

Alluding to the escalating violence and militants gaining ground, analysts noted that Taliban controls or contests 40-50 percent of Afghanistan’s nearly 400 districts, which is more territory than at any time since US forces invaded the country. Mr. Kugelman also argued there were variety of factors that contributing to strengthening Taliban and it would be a mistake to assume that the alleged “Pakistani sanctuaries” alone were responsible for the Taliban’s strength.