{"id":41664,"date":"2018-01-03T14:45:21","date_gmt":"2018-01-03T09:45:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tns.world\/?p=41664"},"modified":"2018-01-03T14:45:21","modified_gmt":"2018-01-03T09:45:21","slug":"us-to-announce-steps-to-pressure-pakistan-within-days-white-house-washingtons-statements-incomprehensible-reacts-islamabad","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tns.world\/?p=41664","title":{"rendered":"US to announce steps to pressure Pakistan within days: White House; Washington\u2019s statements \u201cincomprehensible\u201d reacts Islamabad"},"content":{"rendered":"

WASHINGTON Jan 03 (TNS):<\/strong> The United States accused Pakistan on Tuesday of playing a \u201cdouble game\u201d on fighting terrorism and warned Islamabad it would have to do more if it wanted to maintain U.S. aid.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey can do more to stop terrorism and we want them to do that,\u201d White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders told reporters.<\/p>\n

The White House said it would likely announce actions to pressure Pakistan within days, shortly after U.S. Ambassador Nikki Haley said at the United Nations that Washington would withhold $255 million in assistance to Pakistan.<\/p>\n

\u201dThere are clear reasons for this. Pakistan has played a double game for years,\u201d Haley told reporters. \u201cThey work with us at times, and they also harbor the terrorists that attack our troops in Afghanistan.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThat game is not acceptable to this administration. We expect far more cooperation from Pakistan in the fight against terrorism.\u201d<\/p>\n

The comments followed an angry tweet from President Donald Trump on Monday that the United States had been rewarded with \u201cnothing but lies and deceit\u201d for \u201cfoolishly\u201d giving Pakistan more than $33 billion in aid in the past 15 years.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey give safe haven to the terrorists we hunt in Afghanistan, with little help. No more!\u201d he tweeted.<\/p>\n

Pakistan civilian and military chiefs on Tuesday rejected \u201cincomprehensible\u201d U.S. comments and summoned American Ambassador David Hale to explain Trump\u2019s tweet.<\/u><\/p>\n

Pakistani U.N. Ambassador Maleeha Lodhi said in a statement that her country\u2019s fight against terrorism was not based on any consideration of aid but on national interests and principles.<\/u><\/p>\n

\u201cWe have contributed and sacrificed the most in fighting international terrorism and carried out the largest counter terrorism operation anywhere in the world,\u201d Lodhi said. \u201cWe can review our cooperation if it is not appreciated.\u201d<\/u><\/p>\n

Relations with Washington have been strained for years over Islamabad\u2019s alleged support for Haqqani network militants, who are allied with the Afghan Taliban.<\/p>\n

At the State Department on Tuesday, spokeswoman Heather Nauert said Pakistan knew what it needed to do, including taking action against the Haqqani network and other militants.<\/p>\n

Pakistan needs to \u201cearn, essentially, the money that we have provided in the past in foreign military assistance,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Islamabad bristles at the suggestion it is not doing enough to fight militants, noting that its casualties at the hands of Islamists since 2001 number in the tens of thousands.<\/p>\n

Pakistani Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi on Tuesday chaired a National Security Committee meeting of civilian and military chiefs, focusing on Trump\u2019s tweet. The meeting, which lasted nearly three hours, was brought forward by a day and followed an earlier meeting of army generals.<\/p>\n

The committee, in a statement issued by the prime minister\u2019s office, did not name Trump but spoke of \u201cdeep disappointment\u201d at a slew of critical comments from U.S. officials over the past few months.<\/p>\n

\u201cRecent statements and articulation by the American leadership were completely incomprehensible as they contradicted facts manifestly, struck with great insensitivity at the trust between two nations built over generations, and negated the decades of sacrifices made by the Pakistani nation,\u201d it said.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

WASHINGTON Jan 03 (TNS): The United States accused Pakistan on Tuesday of playing a \u201cdouble game\u201d on fighting terrorism and warned Islamabad it would have to do more if it wanted to maintain U.S. aid. \u201cThey can do more to stop terrorism and we want them to do that,\u201d White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders told […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":41665,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[303],"tags":[304,733],"class_list":["post-41664","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-washington","tag-washington","tag-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41664","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=41664"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41664\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":41666,"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41664\/revisions\/41666"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/41665"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=41664"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=41664"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=41664"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}