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Summary US is optimistic about Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar's visit to Washington.
The spokesperson of the US State Department, Victoria Nuland has termed the forthcoming visit of Pakistani foreign minister to Washington, DC has been long-expected. FM Khar and Secretary Clinton are likely to discuss a full range of bilateral issues in their forthcoming meeting, she said while declining to comment as to how important the issue of Haqqani network will be during these discussions.Well, I’m not going to rack and stack the issues. They’re all important, but you know that we’ve been very intensively focused on our concerns about the Haqqani Network. We’ve been continuing to encourage further squeezing by the Government of Pakistan on the Haqqani Network, and we have now made a full designation, as the Secretary announced a week ago, said while referring to the designation of Haqqaqni network as a foreign terrorist organization.The spokesperson, however, acknowledged that the overall security cooperation was coming back to normal after a tense period. I’m expecting that the full range of issues we have with Pakistan – bilateral, regional, etc – will be covered, including our continuing effort to get our counterterrorism activities back up and running fully, she maintained.When asked about Ambassador Grossmans recent visit to Pakistan, she said that he covered the full range of issues in his meetings with Pakistani leadership and reported the same to Secretary Clinton. We’ll try to build on that conversation going forward. Let me just remind that the Secretary and Foreign Minister Khar have had a very strong relationship ever since Foreign Minister Khar took office, she recalled.On the expectations from the next round of meetings of both dignitaries, she said that this was an effort to revive the relationship. They have both rolled up their sleeves to try to stabilize and strengthen the relationship, and I think this is a good opportunity, obviously, for them to take stock of where we are and continue to try to move forward, she stressed. She also declined to offer any details whether there was any plan in the pipeline to revive Pak-US strategic dialogue on the sidelines of the forthcoming UN General Assembly session. When asked about the closure of US Consulates in Pakistan after protests broke out in response to a religiously sensitive video targeting Muslims, she conceded that the US Consulates General in Lahore, Karachi, and Peshawar were closed Tuesday for public services. But the Embassy in Islamabad is open, although we suspended visa services today. Again, we do that to keep crowds down around the mission, she added.We did see protests throughout the country today, and despite violence in some cities, they have now been dispersed. All of our official American personnel in Pakistan are safe and accounted for. And we are continuing to work with the Government of Pakistan on the security, the spokesman said adding that they were not concerned about the security as such. Our security cooperation in response to the demonstrations with the Government of Pakistan has been good, and we’re continuing to talk about it, she observed.We’re consulting with a very broad range of countries about the response to this video – not just ones where our embassies and consulates and missions have been affected, but around the world and encouraging leaders – whether they’re government leaders, religious leaders – to speak out strongly along the lines that the Secretary and the President have, that we can all condemn this reprehensible video, but it should never be an excuse for violence, Ms. Nuland argued.She said the terrorists were exploiting the situation. We are seeing, whether it is the recent calls by Hezbollah for people to go out into the streets, some of the things we’ve seen on al-Qaida sites, we’re seeing a lot of piling on. We’re seeing a lot of extremist activity trying to exploit the sentiments from this video to gin up folks to violence and try to use that as an excuse for things that might otherwise have been planned, for their otherwise rejectionist agendas. So that’s very concerning, this sort of spoiler, pile-on agenda that’s happening now, she regretted.The spokesperson also called for calm and the need for peaceful protests. First of all, strengthening security, strengthening of vigilance, sharing information, but also leading publics, speaking out strongly that this must never be an excuse for violence, that outrage, concern, hurt, should be expressed through legitimate, democratic channels, should be expressed peacefully, and it’s never an excuse to take the lives of others, she opined.- Contributed by Awais Saleem, Dunya News correspondent in Washington, DC
