Pakistan protests US-India joint statement on cross-border terrorism

Islamabad: Pakistan has formally lodged a protest with the US over its joint statement with India against the country's involvement in cross-border terrorism.

The Foreign Office here said in an overnight statement that the US Deputy Chief of Mission was summoned to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Monday evening and a demarche was issued to him regarding the US-India joint statement of June 22.

“Pakistan’s concerns and disappointment at the unwarranted, one-sided and misleading references to it in the joint statement were conveyed to the US side," it said.

In their joint statement following one-on-one meetings and delegation-level talks on Thursday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and US President Joe Biden called on Pakistan to punish perpetrators of the 26/11 Mumbai and Pathankot attacks.

Later, Prime Minister Modi in his address to the Joint Meeting of the US Congress said there can be "no ifs or buts" in dealing with terrorism and sought action against state sponsors of terrorism, in a veiled attack on Pakistan.

He said that more than two decades after 9/11 and over a decade after the 26/11 attacks in Mumbai, radicalism and terrorism still remain a pressing danger for the whole world.

The Pakistan Foreign Office said the counter-terrorism cooperation between Pakistan and US was progressing well and that an enabling environment, centred around trust and understanding, was imperative to further solidify Pakistan-US ties.

Pakistan's former prime minister Imran Khan on Friday said that the joint statement issued by India and the US during the state visit of Prime Minister Modi to America has reduced the country to a "promoter of cross-border terrorism in India and nothing more".

Addressing the media in Washington on Monday, US State Department Spokesperson Matthew Miller said, “We have also been consistent on the importance of Pakistan continuing to take steps to permanently disband all terrorist groups, including Lashkar-e-Taiba, Jaish-e-Mohammed, and their various front organisations".

"We will raise the issue regularly with Pakistani officials, and will continue to work together to counter mutual terrorist threats, as we discussed during our March 2023 CT dialogue,” he said.

Miller was responding to a question on the India-US joint statement issued during the US state visit of Prime Minister Modi.

In the joint statement, both US President Biden and Prime Minister Modi reiterated the call for concerted action against all UN-listed terrorist groups including al-Qaeda, ISIS/Daesh, Lashkar e-Tayyiba (LeT), Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM), and Hizb-ul-Mujhahideen.

The two leaders strongly condemned cross-border terrorism, and the use of terrorist proxies and “called on Pakistan to take immediate action to ensure that no territory under its control is used for launching terrorist attacks.”