On June 27 in Washington: Less than a week after the US and India released a joint statement in which they said they would work together to fight global terrorism, the Department of State said that Washington has always stressed how important it is for Pakistan to keep taking steps to get rid of all terrorist groups for good.
At a news meeting on Monday, Pakistan’s dismissal of the joint statement as “baseless and one-sided” made Department spokesman Matthew Miller say those things.
Miller said in response, “We are still committed to working with Pakistan to deal with the threat that terrorist groups all over the region pose to us both.”
“Terrorist acts have caused a lot of pain for the people of Pakistan over the years. We do know that Pakistan has finished its Financial Action Task Force action plans and made some important steps to stop terrorism groups.
“We also want to thank both India and Pakistan for keeping the ceasefire along the Line of Control.”
At the same time, he said, the US has been “consistent on the importance of Pakistan continuing to take steps to permanently disband all terrorist groups, including Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM), and their various front organisations.”
“We will talk about it often with Pakistani officials, and we will keep working together to fight terrorist threats on both sides,” the source said.
When asked why the united statement didn’t talk about worries about violations of human rights and religious freedom in India, Miller said, “We often talk to Indian officials about our concerns about human rights.”
“And you heard President Joe Biden himself talk about this at the press conference he had with Prime Minister Narendra Modi.”
Miller’s comments came less than a week after the joint statement was released on June 22 during Prime Minister’s state visit to the US.
The statement said that both Biden and Modi called for coordinated action against all terrorist groups on the UN list, such as Al Qaeda, Islamic State, LeT, JeM, and Hizb-ul-Mujhahideen.
