Pakistan political parties unanimously reject US-India joint statement

ISLAMABAD: The political parties of the country have unanimously rejected the US-India rhetoric in a joint statement issued after a meeting between President Joe Biden and Prime Minister Narendra Modi, urging Islamabad to act against extremist groups.

Reacting to it, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Vice-Chairman Shah Mahmood Qureshi on Saturday criticised the "unwarranted, misleading" statement, saying that it had "no mention of the human rights violations" taking place in India.

Qureshi's statement comes a day after his successor, Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari advised big powers not to make “terrorism a victim of geopolitics”.

The Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) chairman spoke about the matter during an address to the National Assembly on Friday. Defence Minister Khawaja Asif also took exception to the joint statement and said that Pakistan today is paying a heavy price for serving as a frontline state in the two Afghan wars.

Today, while speaking to media outside an anti-terrorism court in Islamabad, Qureshi said that Pakistanis had been hurt by Biden's meeting with Modi, who visited Washington in an apparent bid to further India’s agenda against its neighbours.

The PTI leader, who had served as a foreign minister twice, regretted that the US-India statement did not have any word on the human rights violations committed by New Delhi.

"No voice has been raised on the oppression against Muslims in the Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IIOJK)," Qureshi said.

He condemned that all human rights associations remain silent on the matter.

On Friday, Bilawal told parliamentarians that he believes it is “important for Pakistan to stay away from world politics and focus on itself”.

“I don’t believe there is any reason for Pakistan to be insecure about its relationship with the world or its bilateral partnership with America as a result of increasingly close cooperation between the US and India,” the foreign minister said. He added that Pakistan was standing on its own feet yesterday and is still standing today.

In a rebuke to India on the inclusion of Pakistan’s name in the statement, the foreign minister expressed concern that ever since he took charge and departure of the world from Afghanistan, terrorism has been on the back burner, and Ukraine is the main issue.

“No one is focused on terrorism. It is very easy to add that “there should be work on terrorism” in your statement.”

Earlier, Asif, who is a member of the ruling Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz, said that "terrorism entered Pakistan because it acted as an ally of the United States in the war on terrorism."

The Foreign Office (FO) also termed the joint US-India statement “misleading and unwarranted”, saying that the “reference is contrary to diplomatic norms and has political overtones”.

In the joint statement, Joe Biden and Narendra Modi urged Pakistan to take steps against "cross border terrorism" and make sure that its soil is not being used in "launching terror attacks".

The two leaders called for action against extremist groups allegedly based in Pakistan, such as Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohammad.

“They strongly condemned cross-border terrorism, 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,” the 58-point statement issued by the White House read.

Biden and Modi also reiterated the call for concerted action against all UN-listed terrorist groups, including Al-Qaeda, Daesh and Hizbul Mujahideen.

They stressed bringing the perpetrators of attacks, including the bloody 2008 siege of Mumbai and the Pathankot incidents.