US rules out possibility of sanctions on Pakistan

WASHINGTON: The United States on Tuesday ruled out any possibility of imposing sanctions on Pakistan and maintained that it engages at the highest level and asserts that all militant groups must be targeted.  

“The suggestions of any kind of sanction, we’re not there,” said the State Department’s deputy spokesman Mark Toner adding, “We continue to have conversations with the highest level of the government of Pakistan and our basic point in all of these conversations is that Pakistan must target all militant groups, including those that target Pakistan’s neighbours and eliminate all safe havens.” 

During a daily briefing, the spokesman explained that Pakistan has assured of its intentions to target militant groups indiscriminately. “We have been encouraged by some of the steps they’ve taken, some of their recent counter-terrorism operations along with borer of the Afghanistan. And we continue to work with them [Pakistan] to increase those efforts and apply more pressure on these groups,” he said.  

Responding to a similar question, Toner repeated, “The question was whether we’re looking at sanctioning Pakistan. No. “The answer is that we’re working with Pakistan, we’re making our concerns clear that they need to go after all the terrorist groups that are operating or seeking safe havens on their soil.” 

Toner added that the US has seen progress in this regard from Pakistan but “we need to see more.”   Referring to the remarks made by Secretary John Kerry during his recent trip to India and Bangladesh that the US continues to have discussion with Pakistan, Toner emphasised, “The ultimate goal is we want to see peace and stability in the region and so that is going to involve efforts on Pakistan’s part as well as the ability of Afghanistan and the Afghan government to provide the stability and security to its own people. “And that is our effort we are focused on,” he said.