WASHINGTON: A major US suppose tank — Brookings — prompted President Joe Biden on Monday to call Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and reset America’s ties with Pakistan.
One of the pens of this report, Bruce Riedel, was a counsel to the Clinton and Obama administrations and is also close to the current Popular set-up in Washington. The other, Madiha Afzal, is a fellow at the Centre for Middle East policy.
“ The end of American involvement in Afghanistan and the change in leadership in Pakistan presents the United States with an occasion to reset its long-worried relationship with the world’s fifth-most vibrant country,” they argue in their paper.
“ President Biden should initiate a high-position dialogue with new Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, who’ll be in power for over to a time before the coming election is held.”
The authors noted that because US policy was concentrated on fighting wars in Afghanistan, “ our primary mates in Pakistan were the intelligence service and the service. Lower attention was devoted to the mercenary government”.
“ Now Washington can engage with Islamabad without prioritizing Afghanistan issues at the expenditure of our broader interests in indigenous stability with India and China, encouraging development in South Asia, and supporting the strengthening of the tagged popular forces in Pakistan,” they argued. “ America also has an interest in balancing kindly the influence of China, Pakistan’s closest supporter, on decision-making in Islamabad.”
The authors noted that the Biden administration, and in particular the White House, had given Pakistan a relative cold shoulder to date — “ irked … presumably with also-high minister Imran Khan intimately criticizing the US”.
They noted that Mr. Biden didn’t call Mr. Khan while he was high minister, although Brookings argued he should.
Prompting the White House to call Shehbaz Sharif, the authors refocused out that Mr. Sharif is a three-time former chief minister of Punjab and the family of three-time former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif.
