Despite
challenges in the relationship, the U.S. and Pakistani working groups
continue to meet regularly under the strategic dialogue but no dates
have been set for plenary session of the dialaogue, the State
Department said. “I don’t believe there’s any date for the next plenary
session of the Strategic Dialogue. It has yet to be scheduled. That
said, we have high-level engagement with Pakistan, as well as the
substantive working groups continue to meet as well,” Deputy Spokesman
Mark Toner said. He spoke amid reports that claimed that the next round
of the strategic dialogue between Washington and Islamabad has been
postponed indefinitely, in the backdrop of strains that emerged in the
bilateral relationship after the U.S. unilateral military action
against Osama bin Laden hideout in Abbottabad on May 2, and the
al-Qaeda chief’s having been able to hide in the Pakistani town.
The spokesman asserted continuation of working groups’ meetings by
citing the the upcoming July 5 meeting, led by U.S. Assistant
Secretary of State for International Narcotics and Law Enforcement,
William Brownfield, with his Pakistani counterparts in Islamabad.
“So while there has been no date set yet for the plenary, the working groups do continue to meet on a regular basis.
When pressed if the plenary session of the strategic dialogue has not been schedueled due to purely scheduling issue or there were some political considerations, the spokesman responded:
“I think it’s scheduling issues. I think the working groups, as I said, continue to meet, but trying to do something at the plenary level is a bit more difficult. You talked about political, and again, I’m not going to sugarcoat the fact that we’ve had some pretty serious challenges in the - in our bilateral relationship, but the Strategic Dialogue continues.”
The spokesman also referred to visits by senior U.S. officials including Secretary of State and CIA Chief to Pakistan to address some of the issues following the Abbottabad raid.
The American officials, he said, visited “to address some of these issues, difficult issues, but also to say that we are committed to working with Pakistan in a constructive way on counterterrorism. Pakistan, as we’ve said many, many times, is touched by - in a significant, profound way - the threat of terrorism. They’ve lost a lot of people to terrorism in Pakistan.”
On recent resumption of Pakistan-India dialogue, Toner said it is a very “constructive” step.
“We think it’s important that that continue, and we want to see cooperation on many fronts, including counterterrorism, between the two countries.” APP
