Pak-US relations.pptx

History of Pak-US relations
Main events during cold war
Contemporary Politics
Future perspective

1. Pakistan relations with USA Course T itle: Foreign Policy of Pakistan

2. Group 2 Presented to: Sir Anwar Farooq Presented by: Zain Ullah

3. Contents Beginning of Pak-US relations: 1947-1952 The Cold War Alliance  I: 1953-1962 Transition: 1962-1971 Policy of Bilateralism & Non-Alignment: 1972-1979 The Cold War Alliance II: 1980-1989 The phase of Oscillating Relationship: 1990-2001 The Post-Cold War Alliance against Terrorism: 2001-2007 US officials’ growing scepticism about Pakistan’ role in WOT: 2008-2016 The Relations under Presidency of Donald Trump: 2016-2020 Pak-US relations under Joe Biden’s Administration Future Prognosis

4. 1. Beginning of Pak-US relations: 1947-1952 USA one of the first countries to have established diplomatic relations with Pakistan October 20,1947. Pakistan’s strategic geographic position made it a valuable partner in Western alliance systems to contain the spread of communism. Pakistan has strategic importance with respect to South Asia & its proximity with Middle eastern countries enriched with oil reserves. Pakistan contented that the Soviet Union wanted to get access to the Arabian Sea & to increased its influence in the Middle East. In Foreign Policy, Liaquat Ali Khan established friendly relations with the United States when he visited President Harry S. Trumen in 1950 . It is alleged that during PM Khan’s first visit to US, president Truman requested Pakistan’s premier to let the CIA formulate a base in Pakistan, strictly to keep an eye on the activities of Soviet Union, a request which was not granted by Khan . The Pakistanis wanted to strengthen their relations with the US so as to get an advantage in their confrontation with India over Kashmir.

5. 2. The Cold War Alliance I: 1953-1962 Prospects for Pakistan’s relations with US improved after Republican Eisenhower came to power in 1952 in the White House. Pakistan was faced with serious shortage of wheat in 1952-53 due to economic crises by falling the prices of jute & cotton in International Market, which adversely affected Pakistan’s foreign trade. The US came for Pakistan's rescue by offering a gift of wheat in 1953 which helped to overcome food shortages and built a lot of goodwill in Pakistan for the donor . In 1953, Pakistan aligned itself with the US & accepted military & economic assistance. In 1954, Pakistan signed a Mutual Defense Agreement with the US & subsequently became a member of the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO) and Central Treaty Organization (CENTO) in 1955. These agreements placed Pakistan in the US sphere of influence. In 1956, President Dwight Eisenhower requested prime minister Suhrawardy to lease Peshawar Air Station to the American Army for keeping an eye on soviet Union and its ballistic missile programme. The request was granted by the prime minister.

6. Conti… A key development from Pakistan’s perspective was the amount of development & military aid that started in 1954 & increased to $500 million by 1957 as a result of Pakistan’s joining the regional defense organizations & allying with the USA . Pakistan’s Army Chief staged a military coup in 1958 & later became the President of Pakistan. Field Marshal Ayub Khan had developed strong relations with the Americans. US extended over $900 million worth of military equipment under the mutual defense assistance agreement. The Pakistan air force received six squadrons of modern jet aircraft including F-104, B-57 , F-86 and c-130; the navy also received twelve ships. In 1959, Ayub’s Government allowed the US to operate U2 surveillance flights over the Soviet Union from Peshawar airport. This further strengthened the relations between US-Pak. As Pakistan’s president Ayub Khan put it in his biography, “Friends not Masters”, Pakistan had become America’s “most allied ally in Asia”.

7. 3. Transition: 1962-1971 The Indians and Chinese had fought a war in 1962 in which China had given India a bloody nose. US gave aid to India without consulting Pakistan. As a result Pakistan moved to improve and strengthen its relations with China in order to position itself as a stronger foe for India. The issue troubling the US was Pakistan’s closer relations with China. Pakistan's growing friendship with communist China irked the US who was facing a proxy war against the communists in Vietnam When Khrushchev took the charge of the government, he showed his inclination towards Pakistan that he wanted good relations with Pakistan. Soviet ambassador in Islamabad conveyed the invitation of Khrushchev to president Ayub and was promptly accepted by the president. Eventually Ayub’s visit to Moscow took place in April 1965 . During Ayub era, Pakistan had adopted the policy of bilateralism which was mainly based on relations with USA, USSR and china at the same time. Kremlin leaders demanded that Pakistan should prohibit foreign military bases on its territory, prohibit foreign nuclear weapons on its territory and limitation of military cooperation with military blocs. From this Visit, At least Pakistan gave the message that she was not allied only with the western countries but she also wanted cordial relation with soviets as well .

8. Conti… Pakistan & India fought a war in September, 1965 that was an ill fated affair started by limited guerilla war in Kashmir that Ayub started in order to pressurize India to come to the negotiating table over Kashmir. However, as the war spread, Pakistan could not sustain a long term conflict & asked for a truce & both forces moved back to their previous borders. Further dissentions grew when US aid to Pakistan diminished and it was altogether stopped during 1965 war. During the 1965 war, United States put an embargo on supply of aid to both Pakistan and India and adopted a neutral stance. Pakistan was badly hurt by this decision as India was receiving military aid from Soviet Union as usual while Pakistan’s ally United States stopped its aid .

9. Conti… American military aide was concentrated in West Pakistan, with economic benefits were controlled by and almost exclusively used by West Pakistan. East Pakistani anger towards an absence of economic development was directed towards the United States, as well as West Pakistan. The East-Pakistan parliament passed a resolution denouncing the 1954 military pact with the United States . West Pakistan's high rate of economic growth during this time period brought wide regard to Pakistan as a model of successful implementation of capitalism in a developing country; in 1964, GDP growth was 9.38%. Economic growth in 1965 was a mere 0.88%. The economy rapidly rebounded with a GDP growth of 2.32% in 1966, and 9.79% in 1969. However, given the huge economic cost of the war without any clear victory (or loss), Khan surrendered his presidential powers to Army Commander General Yahya Khan in 1969 . Army Chief General Yahya took over power from President Ayub Khan in March 1969. Political representation had been insufficient and regional succession movements were strengthening in the country especially in the eastern Pakistan province of Bengal. Elections were held in the country in 1970 with the East Pakistani party Awami League taking a majority in the elections.

10. Conti… The military government did not hand over power to the winning party and in a political deadlock, unleashed a crackdown against the East Pakistan population. This led to a limited civil war in 1971 and India siding with the dissidents launched a war in December 1971 . After a fortnight of fighting the Pakistani forces in East Pakistan accepted default and the state of Bangladesh was established. The US Policy in this debacle was aligned with the military establishment of Pakistan due to its earlier links and defense relationships. During 1971’s war, US is speculated to have provided Pakistan with arms and military aid, in order to discourage India from penetrating further into the cities of Pakistan because losing Pakistan meant losing an important ally in the soviet war . President Richard Nixon used Pakistan's relationship with China to start secret contacts with China which resulted with Henry Kissinger's secret visit to China in July 1971 while visiting Pakistan. "The opening to China was an essential element in Nixon's strategy of creating a new global balance of power. His aim was to bring China into the family of nations, reversing two decades of US efforts to isolate Beijing and to use an improved US-Chinese relationship as a lever with Moscow to press for US-Soviet Union.

11. 4. Policy of Bilateralism & Non-Alignment: 1972-1979 As per the elections result, Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto was elected as the president of Pakistan and later on became the prime minister in 1974. Although Bhutto was considered a socialist, he was a close and respected friend of president Nixon, which went in Pakistan’s favor. Prime Minister Bhutto initially focused his attention with normalizing the domestic situation in the country. The Government of Pakistan signed a truce with India, recognized the government of Bangladesh and eventually the 90.000 prisoners were returned by India . The major challenge for the new government came in May, 1974 when India executed an underground nuclear test. This forced the Pakistanis to also seek a nuclear weapons program to match India's capabilities. Pakistan started efforts to acquire a nuclear fuel reprocessing plant from France and a heavy water facility from West Germany. During Bhutto's government Pakistan's foreign policy was aligned to seek a balance between its relations with China. Russia and the USA, Pakistan placed a special emphasis on its relations with the Arab countries in the Middle East.

12. C onti… President Jimmy Carter, an anti-socialist, won the presidential election of US in 1977 and announced to seek a ban on nuclear weapons. Bhutto lost the favor, he enjoyed whilst Nixon was US president as Carter did not appreciate his policies and tightened already placed embargoes on Pakistan. However , Bhutto managed to procure items to enhance his atomic bomb project. President Carter and his administration allegedly threatened Bhutto to disrupt the process of atomic proliferation and research to which the latter did not agree, leading to his differences with the Americans. During Jimmy Carter's administration, sanctions were placed on Pakistan related to export control and restriction of aid Grants. Prime Minister Bhutto called elections in March 1977 from which he gained a landslide victory. However, the opposition blamed it on massive rigging and started a public campaign to oust Bhutto. Prime Minister Bhutto claimed in public rhetoric that the American were behind the opposition movement and wanted to punish his government for its nuclear weapons program & alignment with the Arabs. In July 1977, the Army seized the power in a coup for the third time in the Country.

13. 5. The Cold War Alliance II: 1980-1989 After hanging the former Prime Minister, Zia strengthened his hold on the government and used a cover of Islamic reforms to give credibility to his government. On the nuclear front, General Zia continued the previous policy of Bhutto in acquiring and developing capabilities for nuclear weapons . The chilling relations between the US & Pakistan took another a U-turn when the Soviet Army entered neighboring Afghanistan in December 1979 to support the local communist government. Just four days after the Soviet invasion. On December 29, 1979, Jimmy Carter approved a broader covert action program that instructed the CIA to provide military weapons and ammunition for the Afghan anticommunist fighters, who soon became widely known as ‘mujahideen ’. At Pakistan's insistence, the CIA funneled all aid through the Pakistani intelligence service ISI, which in turn handed over supplies to Afghans . With the Reagan Administration in the White House, the support for the covert war in Afghanistan increased along with the value of the Pakistani cooperation . Pakistan was rewarded with a $3.2 billion aid package for the next six years. As the Afghan war progressed more than three million refugees entered Pakistan .

14. Conti… During this period, Pakistan was considered a valuable ally and the US ignored the increasing developments on the nuclear front as well as the human rights abuses by the Zia regime . Fed up with the costs of the war and covert operations by the mujahideen, supported by the CIA and the Pakistani ISI, by 1988, the Russians had enough and were ready for a respectable evacuation from Afghanistan. The usefulness of Pakistan for the USA with respect to Afghanistan, thus, ended when Mikhail Gorbachev agreed to a retreat in April 1988 . General Zia died in a mysterious plane crash months later in August 1988 and political elections were held in Pakistan . By the end of General Zia’s regime, Congress adopted Pressler amendment. The amendment banned major military and economical aid to Pakistan unless the state was able to justify and provide sufficient evidence that the funds are not being used for nuclear proliferation, this is due to reason that Pakistan Strategic importance was decline. However it is alleged that although Pakistan disclosed that it could enrich uranium and assemble a nuclear device in 1984 and 1987 respectively, the sanctions were not imposed till 1990.

15. 6. The phase of Oscillating Relationship: 1990-2001 After the 1988 elections, Benazir Bhutto, the daughter of former Prime Minister Bhutto, came into power . Every year, the US president had to certify under the Pressler Amendment, enacted in 1984, that Pakistan did not posses a nuclear device. After October 1, 1990, passed without certification, the $564 million economic and military aid program approved for fiscal year 1991 was frozen. At this point the main occupation of the Pakistan government was to try to create a friendly mujahideen regime in Afghanistan, continue to develop is nuclear and missile program and support the militant insurgency in Kashmir. Since the US and Pakistani interests had diverted at this point, with the Soviets retreating from Afghanistan and the US involved in the Middle East, the Pakistanis felt isolated by their "old friend" and " ally“. Domestic politics, once again, became unstable and four successive governments in Pakistan were dissolved one after another in a matter of 11 years with the Army, as always, the main power broker among the political stalwarts. Benazir held the Prime Minister's office twice from 1988-1990 and from 1993-1996. Her main opponent, Nawaz Sharif, held office from 1990-1993 and 1996-1999. Gross fiscal mismanagement, political instability and US sanctions created large fiscal deficits and the governments borrowed heavily from international lenders.

16. Conti… The Pakistanis contented that the Pressler Amendment was specific to Pakistan and the sanctions were unjustified. Additional sanctions were placed after Pakistan acquired M11 missiles and delivery systems technology from China which violated the MTCR regime. By 1996 Pakistan's Afghan efforts were bringing some success and the ISI backed Taliban government was established in Afghanistan. Taliban regime based on their extreme fundamentalist views and gross violations of human rights. In 1998, Prime minister Nawaz Sharif conducted nuclear test in Balochistan, in retaliation to similar tests conducted by India, which invited the wrath of Clinton’s administration on both the countries. President Clinton imposed sanctions under Glenn amendment on India as well as Pakistan. The US had a new interest in Afghanistan by mid 1998 after the terrorist attacks on US Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania which killed two hundred people and were carried on by an organization belonging to Osama Bin Ladin, a former Saudi national living in Afghanistan .

17. Conti… The US administration wanted Pakistan to use its influence on the Taliban to make them handover the culprit over to the US. However, the Taliban refused and new animosity started in the region. In early 1999, Pakistan had a spate of diplomatic discussion to improve their relations with India but by mid 1999 , a limited war had erupted in Kargil between the two countries which had been covertly engineered by the Pakistani Army. As India increased pressure and an escalating war scenario emerged, the US intervened on the request of Pakistan and the armies retreated to their pre war positions . The main casualty in the war turned out to the Pakistani Premier Nawaz Sharif who tried to oust the military commander but a military executed a coup and the military came into power for the fourth time led by General Musharraf. Pakistan's alliance with the US was strained due to factors such as its support for the Taliban and public distancing of the Pakistani government from the U.S . General Musharraf took power at a time when the economic situation of the country was in deep trouble. The rupee was sliding, foreign reserves had been depleted and rampant corruption had messed up the infrastructure of the country.

18. 7. The Post-Cold War Alliance against Terrorism: 2001-2007 From the United States perspective, Pakistan was moving closer to a "failed state" case and it's nuclear and missile programs were a constant concern for policy makers in Washington. A failing economy could easily lead to another coup backed by the Islamists and the country could fall in fundamentalist hands along with its arsenal of nuclear weapons. With this scenario in view, the US administration more or less supported the Musharraf regime . After the September 11, 2001 attacks in the United States of America, Pakistan became a key ally in the war on terror with the United States. However, US$5 billion earmarked to train the Pakistani army in counter terrorism were instead spent on unrelated military purposes. On November 6th, 2001. US President George W. Bush declared his policy: "You are either with us or against us". President Musharraf later claimed that the U.S. had made a so-called threat to bomb Pakistan "back to the Stone Age" after the September 11 attacks, if Pakistan refused to aid and help America with its war on terrorism . Pervez Musharraf acknowledges the payments in his book : “We've captured 689 and handed over 369 to the United States. We've earned bounties totaling millions of dollars”.

19. Conti… In return for their support on WOT, Pakistan had sanctions lifted and has received about $10 billion in U.S. aid since 2001, primarily military. In June 2004, President George W. Bush designated Pakistan as a major non-NATO ally ,  making it eligible, among other things, to purchase advanced American military technology . Pakistan has lost thousands of lives since joining the U.S. war on terror in the form of both soldiers and civilians and was going through a critical period, however many areas of Pakistan are becoming terror free. Hundreds of thousands of refugees have been created internally in Pakistan, as they have been forced to flee their homes as a result of fighting between Pakistani forces and the Taliban in the regions bordering Afghanistan and further in Swat . On 11th June, 2008, a US airstrike on the Afghan-Pakistani border killed 10 members of the paramilitary Frontier Corps. The Pakistani military condemned the airstrike as an act of aggression, souring the relations between the two countries. In the November 2008 Mumbai attacks, the United States informed Pakistan that it expected full cooperation in the hunt for the plotters of the attacks.

20. 8. US officials’ growing scepticism about Pakistan’ role in WOT: 2008-2016 On 14 September 2009, former President of Pakistan, Pervez Musharraf, admitted that American foreign aid to Pakistan had been diverted from its original purpose of fighting the Taliban to preparing for war against neighboring  India. The United States government has responded by stating that it will take these allegations seriously. In October 2009, the US Congress approved $7.5 billion of non-military aid to Pakistan over the next five years via the Kerry-Lugar Bill . 2011 was rated by the BBC as a "disastrous year" for Pakistan-U.S. relations, primarily due to three events: the Raymond Allen Davis incident, the death of Osama bin Laden and the Salala incident . In January 2011, the Raymond Allen Davis incident occurred in which Raymond Davis, an alleged private security contractor, shot dead two Pakistani locals. The action sparked protests in Pakistan and threatened relations between the United States and Pakistan, including aid flows . The CIA believes Osama Bin Laden to be hiding in Pakistan. The CIA had long suspected Osama Bin Laden of hiding in Pakistan. India and US have also accused Pakistan of giving safe-haven to the  Taliban.  However, Pakistan has repeatedly denied these accusations.

21. Conti… Osama bin Laden, the head of the militant group al-Qaeda, was killed in Pakistan on May 2, 2011, shortly after 1 a.m. local time by a United States special forces military unit. According to Obama administration officials, US officials did not share information about the raid with the government of Pakistan until it was over. According to the Pakistani foreign ministry, the operation was conducted entirely by US forces .  Pakistan Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) officials said they were also present at what they called a joint operation; President  Asif Ali Zardari flatly denied this . The United States and Pakistan have experienced several military confrontations on the Afghanistan-Pakistan border. These skirmishes took place between American forces deployed in Afghanistan, and Pakistani troops guarding the border. On November 26, 2011, 28 Pakistani soldiers were killed in an aerial attack on Pakistani positions near the border. The attack further damaged US-Pakistani relations with many in Pakistan calling for a more hardline stance against the United States . Since some in the U.S. government claimed that they had caught bin Laden without Pakistani help, numerous allegations were made that the government of Pakistan had shielded bin Laden. According to the leaked files, in December 2009, the government of Tajikistan had also told US officials that many in Pakistan were aware of bin Laden's whereabouts.

22. Conti… CIA chief Leon Panetta said the CIA had ruled out involving Pakistan in the operation, because it feared that "any effort to work with the Pakistanis could jeopardize the mission. They might alert the targets. However, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton stated that "cooperation with Pakistan helped lead us to bin Laden and the compound in which he was hiding”. Obama echoed her sentiments. John O. Brennan, Obama's chief counterterrorism advisor, said that it was inconceivable that bin Laden did not have support from within Pakistan. He further stated, "People have been referring to this as hiding in plain sight. We are looking at how he was able to hide out there for so long. In 2012, Shakil Afridi, a doctor who had set up a fake vaccination campaign, in cooperation with the United States in searching for Al Qaeda and bin Laden, was convicted of treason by Pakistan, and sentenced to 33 years in prison. The role of Dr. Afridi was exposed by the British newspaper The Guardian in July 2011. CIA's fake vaccination campaign in turned greatly harmed Pakistan polio vaccine drive in the tribal areas . Following years of poor inter-governmental relations, the two countries began to cooperate more closely, particularly following the United States' use of drone missiles to strike at Pakistan's most-wanted militant Mullah Fazlullah on November 24, 2014, whom they "narrowly missed".

23. Conti… The United States later used drone missiles to kill several of Pakistan's most wanted militants who were hiding in a remote region close to the Afghan border in November 2014. The Pakistani Zarb-e-Azb operation against militant in North Waziristan also, in the words of Lt. Gen. Joseph Anderson, "fractured" the Haqqani Network, long accused by the United States of having a safe harbor in Pakistan . Following an unprecedented two-week-long visit by Pakistan's most senior military official Gen. Raheel Sharif, Rep. Adam Schiff stated that US-Pakistani relations were on the upswing following several tense years of dysfunction. On February 11, 2016, US government has proposed US$860 million in aid for Pakistan during the 2016–17 fiscal year, including $265 million for military hardware in addition to counterinsurgency funds. The accusation that US senator John McCain leveled during his visit to Afghanistan in July 2016. The Taliban continues to control significant parts of the country, getting assistance from Pakistan's insurgent Haqqani network, he said. The Haqqani network has crossed the border from North Waziristan, Pakistan, to carry out attacks against the U.S.-backed Afghan government. I'm very concerned about the proposed cutbacks in the troop strength in Afghanistan.

24. Conti…

25. 9. The Relations under Presidency of Donald Trump: 2016-2020 On August 21, 2017, Donald Trump announced his new strategy for Afghan War and accused Pakistan of providing safe havens to terrorists. " The Pakistani people have suffered greatly from terrorism and extremism. We recognize those contributions and those sacrifices, but Pakistan has also sheltered the same organizations that try every single day to kill our people", Trump said. Moreover, Trump also urged India for its role in the war . The US encouraged India to have increased / more and more military roles in Afghanistan or a direct military role. The coercive Policy adopted by Trump against Pakistan/hardening of the US stance in Afghanistan. On January 1, 2018, Donald Trump again criticized Pakistan, saying "they have given us nothing but lies and deceit". President Trump also announced cancelling a $300 million disbursement to Pakistan, citing the country's failure to take strong actions against Afghan Taliban militants and their safe havens in Pakistan . Trump, in an interview with Fox News aired on November 18, accused Pakistan of helping to hide Al-Qaeda founder Osama bin Laden, who was killed in 2011 during a raid by U.S. Special Forces in Abbottabad, Pakistan.

26. Conti… However, the relations between the two countries improved after Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan visited United States and met President Donald Trump. Many experts viewed Khan's visit to United States as 'reset in the bilateral relationship between the two countries'.  In September 2019, during a joint rally at Houston, Trump refused to endorse India's repeated allegations against Pakistan. After the joint rally, Trump called himself a 'friend' of Pakistan and termed Imran Khan as a 'great leader '. In January 2020, President Trump once again held a meeting with Prime Minister Khan in Davos, on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum. President Trump hailed the growing relationship between the United States and Pakistan .  He said that United States has never been closer with Pakistan than it is currently under his administration. This was the third meeting between the two countries and Trump once again offered to mediate on Kashmir issue. His remarks were welcomed by Prime Minister Khan.

27. 10. Pak-US relations under Joe Biden’s Administration 28 January 2021 Pakistan's Supreme Court upheld a lower Court's Judgement acquitting Omar Saeed Sheikh: the man convicted of masterminding the kidnapping of Wall Street Journal's Journalist Daniel Pearl. The Biden Administration Reaction Swiftly denounced the Court's decision calling it an "affront to terrorism victims elsewhere , including Pakistan", adding that the US expected "the Pakistani government to explicitly review its options to ensure justice is served ". The Nature and Direction of Biden Administration's Policy towards Pakistan is looking through the prism of Afghanistan. The administration viewed Pakistan's role in Afghanistan as a "short-term" project. It expected Islamabad to persuade the Taliban to throttle down the military campaign against the Afghan government. There has been no response to Pakistan's calls for developing broader-based economic relationships. US increasing skepticism towards Taliban . Though withdrawal from Afghanistan remained the Biden administration's preferred policy yet it also gave the indication that it would review the deal signed with the Taliban, arguing that the Taliban had violated all the conditions such as reduction of violence, being genuine in negotiations with the Afghan government and stopping support to transm\national networks such as Al-Qaeda which were set as prerequisites for withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan.

28. Conti… Perceptible Change in US policy towards Pakistan's role in the settlement of the Afghan Conflict. If one compares Biden's policy regarding/Pakistan's role in the settlement/resolution of the Afghan conflict, one can highlight a perceptible difference: Trump administration in certain ways assigned Pakistan the role of the "Third Party", particularly since 2018. Whereas the Biden administration treated Pakistan as an actor among the other actors. The most recent developments in Afghanistan have pushed the Pak-US relations towards more uncertainty. The future course of the relationship between the two governments would be largely determined by the Afghan situation. How would the Taliban behave ? The US response in the wake of further deterioration in US relations with Taliban. US desire to have some stabilizing role in the region that is securing some bases .

29. Conti… Gen Bajwa: "while CPEC remains central to our vision while seeing Pakistan through the CPEC prism is also misleading. Our immensely vital geo-strategic location and a transformed vision make us a country of immense and diverse potential ". During the 2022 Pakistani constitutional crisis, Imran Khan blamed the US officials Donald Lu and named the United States as the country in question over a 'threatening letter', warns American 'regime change' for his downfall . In October 2022, U.S. President Joe Biden called Pakistan “one of the most dangerous nations in the world” during an address in California while speaking about the changing global geopolitical situation. Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto Zardari rejected the statement as baseless, and the country’s acting foreign secretary summoned the U.S. ambassador for an explanation of Biden’s remarks .

30. 11. Future Prognosis Immediate relations: Not very optimistic scenario can be drawn in view of the increasing uncertainties in the relations The changin g situation in Afghanistan. Distant relations: Pakistan’s role in the Region. US desire in de-escalating India-Pakistan Conflict. Trade relations between two countries. US desire for peace in South Asia.

31. Conti… Suggestions to improve relations: Pakistan needs to strike/maintain a sensible balance in its policies on China and US. Both countries may harbor a number of grievances against each other over a range of issues , yet despite that, they should see the bright side of the relations as well as take cognizance of the realities that confront the two countries. This kind of approach in certain ways may bring about considerable improvement in the relations between the two countries . In view of the development of the India-US-Afghan nexus of interests against Pakistan. The latter should not let itself be the victim of isolation. And a possible way or option is to strengthen relations with the US. One should realize the intrinsic/fundamental nature of the Pak-US relationship. Oscillating nature of the relationship: convergence to divergence and divergence to convergence. Pakistan should explore areas of convergence.