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Washington/Islamabad, The US today suspended over $1.15 billion security aid and delivery of military equipment to Pakistan for failing to clamp down on the Afghan Taliban and the Haqqani Network terror groups and dismantling their safe havens.
The freezing of all security assistance to Pakistan comes after President Donald Trump in a New Year’s Day tweet accused the country of giving nothing to the US but “lies and deceit” and providing a “safe haven” to terrorists in return for the $33 billion aid over the last 15 years.
The suspended amount includes $255 million in Foreign Military Funding (FMF) for the 2016 fiscal as mandated by Congress. In addition, the Department of Defence has suspended the entire $900 million as Coalition Support Funds for the fiscal year 2017 and other unspent money from previous fiscal years.
“We are suspending national security assistance to Pakistan at this time until the Pakistan Government takes decisive action against groups, including the Afghan Taliban and the Haqqani Network,” State Department spokesperson Heather Nauert told the media.
“We consider them (terror groups) to be destabilising the region and also targeting US personnel. The US will suspend that kind of security assistance to Pakistan,” she said, adding that the US would not be delivering military equipment or transfer security-related funds to Pakistan, unless required by law.
Reacting to the move, Pakistan’s Foreign Office said: “We are engaged with the US Administration on the issue of security cooperation and await details. Arbitrary deadlines, unilateral pronouncements and shifting goalposts are counterproductive in addressing common threats.”
It said Pakistan believed its cooperation with the US in fighting terrorism directly served US national security interests as well as the larger interests of the international community. Historically, the US has provided Pakistan over $1 billion in security assistance annually.
In August, in his new South Asia strategy, Trump had accused Pakistan of providing “safe haven to agents of chaos, violence, and terror”, emphasising the time had come “for Pakistan to demonstrate its commitment to
civilisation, order, and to peace”. Referring to Trump’s new strategy, Nauert said despite a sustained high-level engagement by the US Administration with the Government of Pakistan, the Taliban and Haqqani Network continued to find sanctuary inside Pakistan as they plotted to destabilise Afghanistan and also attack the US and allied personnel. At the same time, she made it clear that the US action had nothing to do with Pakistan not taking action against Mumbai terror attack mastermind and JuD chief Hafiz Saeed.
“We have certainly expressed our concern about the mastermind of the 2008 Mumbai attacks being let out of house arrest. To my knowledge, that has nothing to do with that,” she said in response to a question on Saeed, released by Pakistan in November last. “There is a $10 million reward for information leading to his re-arrest, the person who is the mastermind of the Mumbai attacks who was let go in Pakistan,” Nauert said.
