ISLAMABAD: As the United States decides whether Donald Trump or Joe Biden will be its next president, Pakistan on Tuesday conveyed its best wishes to the American people, saying it looks forward to working with whoever wins the high-stakes election.
“Pakistan looks forward to working with anyone who wins today [Wednesday],” Foreign Office spokesperson Zahid Hafeez Chaudhri said while speaking to Arab News.
Chaudhri said the election was an “internal matter” of the US but Pakistan conveyed its best wishes to the people of the country.
US-PAKISTAN TIES:
Since 2019, the US-Pakistan relationship has been marked by cooperation on the Afghan peace process and attempts, with limited success, to boost the relationship on other fronts. The reset in Washington’s approach to Islamabad that occurred last year was due not to “Trump’s impulsiveness, but to a transactional approach” driven by the latter’s usefulness in the peace process which allowed the former to exit war-torn Afghanistan after almost two decades.
International observers do not expect any significant change in Washington’s current Afghanistan policy regardless of who wins the presidential contest.
Trump has also repeatedly offered to help resolve the Kashmir dispute — an offer which New Delhi has rejected, saying the matter had to be addressed between Pakistan and India.
‘EVEN-HANDED TREATMENT’ WITH RESPECT TO INDIA:
Last Saturday, days after the US and India signed an agreement allowing the latter to access the former’s satellite data crucial for targeting missiles and other military assets, Prime Minister Imran Khan had said that Islamabad expected an “even-handed treatment” from Washington with respect to New Delhi.
Referring to the Kashmir dispute in a wide-ranging interview to a German publication, Der Spiegel, Imran had noted the South Asian region was a “hotspot that could flare up at any time”, saying the long-standing dispute needed international attention.
Imran, while observing that India has territorial disputes with almost every neighbour, said, “India is a threat to its neighbours, to China, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and to us [Pakistan].”
“It has the most extremist, racist government on the subcontinent. It is a fascist state, inspired by the Nazis in the 1920s and 30s,” he added.
“That’s why,” the premier said, “we [Pakistan] expect the US, as the strongest country in the world, to be even-handed, whoever becomes president.”
