WASHINGTON: The United States (US) has not been considering to impose sanctions on Pakistan and that the recent operations Pakistan conducted along the border with Afghanistan are encouraging, said the US State Department on Tuesday.
“The answer is that we’re working with Pakistan, we’re making our concerns clear that they need to go after all the terrorist groups that are operating or seeking safe haven on their soil. And that’s been our clear objective for a long time now. We’ve seen progress, but we need to see more” Mark Toner, State department deputy spokesperson said.
He said we continue to have conversations with the Government of Pakistan at the highest level. And our basic point in all of these conversations is that Pakistan must target all militant groups, including those that target Pakistan’s neighbors, and eliminate all safe havens,” he said.
“We have been encouraged by some of the steps they’ve taken, some of their recent counterterrorism operations along the border with Afghanistan” Toner said.
The US is working with Pakistan to increase those efforts and apply more pressure on these (militant) groups, he added.
The spokesman said that it is in the interest of Pakistan and Afghanistan to go after these terrorist groups, to root them out, and to destroy them.
“The ultimate goal is we want to see peace and stability in the region, and so that’s going to involve efforts on Pakistan’s part, as well as the ability of the Afghan government to provide the stability and security to its own people,” he said.
Referring to the remarks made by the Secretary of State John Kerry during his recent trip to India and Bangladesh, Toner said the US has had very frank conversations with Pakistan’s leadership and military leadership about the need to focus more efforts on those terrorist groups, all the terrorist groups rather, that are operating from within Pakistani soil, or territory rather.
Asked to comment on Mumbai attack in which six Americans were also killed, Mark Toner said we’ve been very clear that we want to see accountability and justice in the case of the Mumbai attacks.
“We’ve long encouraged and pushed for greater counterterrorism cooperation, and that includes the sharing of intelligence between India and Pakistan in that regard. That continues; those efforts continue. We want to see full accountability for these terrible attacks”. —Agencies
