ISLAMABAD: US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and US military chief General Joseph Dunford landed at the Nur Khan Airbase in Islamabad on Wednesday for a one-day official visit to Pakistan.
Higher officials of Foreign Office and authorities of US embassy received them. Both will meet Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Quereshi and hold delegation level talks at FO.
They might hold a crucial meeting with Prime Minister Imran Khan and Chief of Army Staff (COAS) General Qamar Javed Bajwa.
Pompeo will then travel to India where he will be joined by Defense Secretary Jim Mattis. They will meet with their Indian counterparts on a range of key defence and trade issues.
According to American media, Pompeo’s visit aims at rapprochement with Pakistan. And to restore the once close ties enjoyed by Islamabad and Washington. Pompeo will also request Pakistan to back US-led move to restart the peace process in war-torn Afghanistan.
The visit comes a few days after the Pentagon cancelled aid to Pakistan over record on militants. The US military said it has made a final decision to cancel $300 million in aid to Pakistan. That had been suspended over Islamabad’s perceived failure to take decisive action against militants, in a new blow to deteriorating ties.
The so-called Coalition Support Funds were part of a broader suspension in aid to Pakistan. Announced by President Donald Trump at the start of the year when he accused Pakistan of rewarding past assistance with “nothing but lies & deceit.”
But US officials had held out the possibility that Pakistan could win back that support if it changed its behaviour.
US Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, in particular, had an opportunity to authorize $300 million in CSF funds through this summer. If he saw concrete Pakistani actions to go after insurgents. Mattis chose not to, a US official said.
“Due to a lack of Pakistani decisive actions in support of the South Asia Strategy the remaining $300 (million) was reprogrammed.” Pentagon spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Kone Faulkner said.
Faulkner said the Pentagon aimed to spend the $300 million on “other urgent priorities” if approved by Congress. He said another $500 million in CSF Congress stripped from Pakistan earlier this year, to bring the total withheld to $800 million.
The disclosure came ahead of an expected visit by U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and the top US military officer, General Joseph Dunford, to Islamabad. Mattis told reporters on Tuesday that combating militants would be a “primary part of the discussion.”
Experts on the Afghan conflict, America’s longest war, argue that militant safe havens in Pakistan have allowed Taliban-linked insurgents in Afghanistan a place to plot deadly strikes and regroup after ground offensives.