ISLAMABAD: Counselor of the US Department of State Derek Chollet on Thursday reaffirmed Washington\u2019s commitment to help Pakistan deal with resurgence of terrorism in the country and said that the two countries were looking at ways to strengthen their military ties.<\/p>\n
Talking to a group of journalists at the US Embassy after his meetings here, the senior State Department official said that US was \u201cprepared to work with Pakistan as they\u2019re trying to deal with this renewed threat to them\u201d.<\/p>\n
Though he confirmed that counter-terrorism cooperation was discussed in the military talks held a few days back in Washington and in his own meeting at the General Headquarters, he, however, did not share specifics of the planned cooperation.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t want to get into the details of that right now but we\u2019re very much following their lead in terms of both the investigation and where that leads and ensuring that those who conducted these attacks are held accountable,\u201d he maintained.<\/p>\n
Says two nations looking at ways to strengthen military ties<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
He said the US officials were assessing the terrorist threat and how it was evolving. \u201cWe are looking at what we can do together to try to address that threat, because the last thing any of us wants to see is a return to where things were here 15 some years ago,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
Military cooperation<\/strong><\/p>\n
\u201cWell, we\u2019re also looking at how to strengthen the military relationship,\u201d he further said noting the long history of the military ties and how those had supported the broader bilateral relationship.<\/p>\n
Chollet underscored the need for taking other elements of the relationship in tandem with the growth in the military ties. He said that the bilateral relationship has been in the past \u201cdefined solely or principally by our military to military ties\u201d, but now other areas of cooperation like energy, environment and climate, and trade and investment are also being focused.<\/p>\n
Economic crisis<\/strong><\/p>\n
Speaking about Pakistan\u2019s rapidly aggravating economic crisis, the official said that US was working with both IMF and other international partners to help the struggling country.<\/p>\n
He urged the government to undertake fundamental reforms to put the economy on track.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s an eagerness from the US private sector to be more engaged, but in order for them to be engaged and to realise that potential, some of these reforms are necessary so people can have confidence in their investments here,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
About the overall trajectory of the relationship, he said efforts were under way to reframe it.<\/p>\n
He felt that the desired rebooting may not be achieved in the short term, but prospects of success were brighter over the longer term.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
ISLAMABAD: Counselor of the US Department of State Derek Chollet on Thursday reaffirmed Washington\u2019s commitment to help Pakistan deal with resurgence of terrorism in the country and said that the two countries were looking at ways to strengthen their military ties. Talking to a group of journalists at the US Embassy after his meetings here, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":113515,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[54,23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-113514","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-islamabad","category-national"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113514","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=113514"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113514\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":113516,"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113514\/revisions\/113516"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/113515"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=113514"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=113514"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=113514"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}