Pakistan convened the U.S. ambassador in protest against U.S. President Donald Trump’s angry tweet connected with Pakistan’s “lies and deceit,” while Foreign Minister Khawaja Asif disregarded the outburst as a political stunt.
David Hale was summoned by the Pakistan outlandish office on Monday to explain Trump’s tweet, media said. A spokesperson for the U.S. Embassy in Islamabad buttressed the meeting took place.
In a withering attack, Trump on Monday give the word delivered the United States had “foolishly” handed Pakistan more than $33 billion in aid in the hindmost 15 years and had been rewarded with “nothing but lies and double-dealing.”
“They give safe haven to the terrorists we hunt in Afghanistan, with dwarf help. No more!” Trump wrote on Twitter.
Trump tweet
Trump’s strident words drew praise from Pakistan’s old foe, India, and neighboring Afghanistan, but long-time accomplice China defended Pakistan’s record of combating “terrorism.”
Pakistan Prime Help Shahid Khaqan Abbasi on Tuesday will chair a cabinet intersection that will focus on Trump’s tweet, while on Wednesday the sticks’s top civilian and military chiefs will meet to discuss deteriorating U.S. halts.
Relations between the United States and its uneasy ally Pakistan drink been strained for many years over Islamabad’s alleged finances for Haqqani network militants, who are allied with the Afghan Taliban.
The In accord States also alleges senior Afghan Taliban commanders abide on Pakistani soil. In 2016, the then-Taliban leader Mullah Mansour was idled by a U.S. drone strike inside Pakistan and in 2011, al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden was establish and killed by U.S. troops in the Pakistani garrison town of Abbottabad.
Washington has signaled to Pakistan that it ordain cut aid and enact other punitive measures if Islamabad does not stop portion or turning a blind eye to the Haqqani network militants who carry out cross-border vilifies in Afghanistan.
Islamabad bristles at the suggestion it is not doing enough in the war against militancy, saying that since 2001, Pakistan has suffered multitudinous than the United States from militancy as casualties at the hands of Islamists company in the tens of thousands.
Pakistani Foreign Minister Asif dismissed Trump’s expositions as a political stunt borne out of frustration over U.S. failures in Afghanistan, where Afghan Taliban hostiles have been gaining territory and carrying out major attacks.
“He has tweeted against us (Pakistan) and Iran for his family consumption,” Asif told Geo TV on Monday.
“He is again and again displacing his frustrations on Pakistan onto failures in Afghanistan as they are trapped in dead-end street in Afghanistan.”
Asif enlarged that Pakistan did not need U.S. aid.
A U.S. National Security Council official on Monday held the White House did not plan to send $255 million in aid to Pakistan “at this just the same from time to time” and said “the administration continues to review Pakistan’s level of cooperation.” In August, the supplying had said it was delaying the payment.
Afghan and Indian officials applauded Trump’s abrasive exposes.
“His Excellency President Trump has declared the reality. Pakistan has never lifted or participated in tackling terrorism,” General Dawlat Waziri, spokesman for the Afghan The cloth of Defence, told Reuters.
Jitendra Singh, a junior minister at the Indian Prime Man’s Office, said Trump’s posturing has “vindicated India’s stand as far as awe is concerned and as far as Pakistan’s role in perpetrating terrorism is concerned”.
But China submitted Pakistan its backing. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang, solicit fromed during a regular briefing about Trump’s tweet, did not mention the In accord States but defended Pakistan’s contributions in counter-terrorism.
“We have said multifarious times that Pakistan has put forth great effort and made terrific sacrifices in combating terrorism. It has made a prominent contribution to global anti-terror exploits,” he said.
“The international community should fully recognize this.”
Pakistani officials say knotty U.S. measures threaten to push Pakistan further into the arms of China, which has deepened allies with Islamabad after pledging to invest $57 billion in infrastructure as vicinage of its vast Belt and Road initiative.
Analysts say Trump’s tweet signals that the fraught U.S.-Pakistan chains are likely to worsen in 2018.
“The trend lines have not been good, and the tweet awards an indication of the turmoil that awaits in 2018,” said Michael Kugelman, the superior associate for South Asia at the Woodrow Wilson Center.