Pakistan not responsible for failure in Afghanistan: McCain

WASHINGTON: Senator John McCain has given Pakistan a clean chit as far as Afghanistan’s troubled state of affairs is concerned, a private TV channel reported on Thursday.

Chairman of the United States Armed Services Committee said that the responsibility of trouble in Afghanistan and the failure to resolve it did not lie with Pakistan or President Ashraf Ghani but with President Barack Obama. He criticised Obama’s policies while talking about the region.

According to the US senator, the relations of Pakistan with the United States are fundamentally important and the terms between the two are better than before.However, he said that the US-Pakistan relations had entered a sensitive phase ever since an extremist outfit, the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, emerged in Afghanistan. He favoured talks and negotiations among countries for resolution of outstanding issues instead of boycotts. outstanding issues instead of boycott.

India should not have had any issue with Pakistan’s Nuclear Suppliers Group inclusion bid, Republican’s 2008 presidential nominee said adding that good terms with the neighbours are in benefit for all.

He observed that permanent deployment of US troops in Afghanistan would be beneficial just like Korea, Japan and Germany. The United States senator told that he met former president of Pakistan Asif Ali Zardari on his wish and could not meet Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif but that he prayed for his sound health.

McCain said that he would meet Chief of Army Staff General Raheel Sharif and Chairman of the Senate, Raza Rabbani soon.