Lahore: Moeed Yusuf, the National Security Adviser (NSA) in Pakistan has hit out at the US President Joe Biden for not calling Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan. In an interview given to Financial Times, Moeed Yusuf said that the US administration is ignoring Pakistan’s leadership.
The US administration has relied on the Pakistan government to assist in bringing senior Taliban officials to negotiation and to finalize the deal with the USA. The Pakistani official revealed that the US president hasn’t spoken to the prime minister of such a crucial country, which the US claims is make-or-break in some circumstances, in some respects, in Afghanistan. Yusuf was part of a team visiting Washington that included the head of Pakistan’s ISI intelligence agency to talk about the Afghan problem.
‘The president of the United States hasn’t spoken to the prime minister of such an important country who the US itself says is make-or-break in some cases, in some ways, in Afghanistan — we struggle to understand the signal, right?’ Yusuf said.
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‘We’ve been told every time that the phone call will happen, it’s technical reasons or whatever. But frankly, people don’t believe it, he said. If a phone call is a concession, if a security relationship is a concession, Pakistan has options,’ he added.
Pakistan was designated as an official major non-NATO partner by the United States in 2004, in response to US government’s demand for assistance in Afghanistan. However, US administrations have accused Pakistan of nourishing Taliban insurgents on a regular basis since then. The US administration had reduced US dollar 2 billion in security assistance to Pakistan during Donald Trump’s presidency.
Earlier during his US visit, Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan had said that the US administration had seriously screwed it up in Afghanistan and that the US had regarded Pakistan ‘more like a hired gun.’
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