The Biden administration sees Pakistan as an “essential partner” in any peace process in Afghanistan and believes that “continuing to build relationships with Pakistan’s military will provide openings for the United States and Pakistan to cooperate on key issues,” says its nominated defence chief Gen Lloyd J Austin.

Gen Austin made these remarks during his confirmation hearing for the post of secretary of defence before the United States Senate Armed Services Committee on Tuesday.

“Pakistan is an essential partner in any peace process in Afghanistan,” Austin, a former head of the US Central Command, told the committee. “If confirmed, I will encourage a regional approach that garners support from neighbours like Pakistan, while also deterring regional actors, from serving as spoilers to the Afghanistan peace process.”

When asked what changes he would recommend to US relations with Pakistan as the new defence chief, Gen Austin said: “I will focus on our shared interests which include training future Pakistan military leaders through the use of International Military Education and Training funds. Pakistan will play an important role in any political settlement in Afghanistan. We also need to work with Pakistan to defeat al Qaeda and the Islamic State Khorasan Province (ISIS-K) and to enhance regional stability.”

Asked if he has perceived any change in Pakistan’s cooperation with the US since the Trump administration’s decision in 2018 to withhold security assistance, Gen Austin said: “I understand Pakistan has taken constructive steps to meet US requests in support of the Afghanistan peace process. Pakistan has also taken steps against anti-Indian groups, such as Lashkar-i-Taiba and Jaish-i-Mohammad, although this progress is incomplete.”

The general, however, acknowledged that “many factors in addition to the security assistance suspension may impact Pakistan’s cooperation, including Afghanistan negotiations and the dangerous escalation following the Pulwama terrorist attack.”

“Pakistan is a sovereign country,” he said when asked what tools and options the US had to influence Pakistan.

“I will press Pakistan to prevent its territory from being used as a sanctuary for militants and violent extremist organisations. Continuing to build relationships with Pakistan’s military will provide openings for the United States and Pakistan to cooperate on key issues.”

Peace deal review

Meanwhile, Tony Blinken, who appeared before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee for his confirmation hearing for the post of secretary of state, said he wanted to review the US-Taliban peace deal but clarified that the new administration would also continue the peace process started by the Trump administration.

Blinken, who is a former State Department official, would undertake a review of the peace deal because like the outgoing Trump administration, which negotiated the deal, the new US rulers also want to end the almost 20-year long war in Afghanistan.

“We want to end this so-called forever war,” he insisted. “We want to bring our forces home. We want to retain some capacity to deal with any resurgence of terrorism, which is what brought us there in the first place,” Blinken said. “We have to look carefully at what has actually been negotiated. I haven’t been privy to it yet.”

America’s President-elect Joe Biden has stated that while he would reduce the number of combat troops in Afghanistan, he would not withdraw US military presence.

Last year, during a debate between Democratic presidential candidates, Biden had said: “We can prevent the United States from being the victim of terror coming out of Afghanistan by providing for bases — insist the Pakistanis provide bases for us to air lift from and to move against what we know.”

In his hearing on Tuesday, Blinken also promised to consider the rights of Afghan women and girls whose freedoms were severely curtailed during the Taliban regime.

“I don’t believe that any outcome that they might achieve,” Blinken said of nascent talks between Taliban and the Kabul government, “is sustainable without protecting the gains that have been made by women and girls in Afghanistan over the last 20 years.”

Relations with India

The Biden administration, Blinken said, would also like to continue a close relationship with India.

“India has been a bipartisan success story of our successive administrations. It started towards the end of the Clinton administration,” he said.

“During the Obama administration, we deepened cooperation on defence procurement and information sharing. The Trump administration carried that forward including its concept of Indo-Pacific and to make sure we were working with India so that no country in the region, including China, could challenge its sovereignty.”

The US, he said, would also continue to work with India on concerns that the two countries share about terrorism.

“There are many ways we can deepen that cooperation that successive administrations have put us on,” Blinken told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

United Nations – A group of independent UN experts expressed great concern over the situation in the United States, after Congress riot, while a climate of tension prevails in Washington this Tuesday.

In a statement released at the United Nations, some 23 special rapporteurs, members of the multilateral organization’s working groups and volunteers who are not official UN personnel, condemned the January 6 attack on Congress.

They believe that action was a shocking and incendiary attempt to annul the results of the November 3, 2020 presidential elections, in which Democrat Joe Biden was the winner.

The UN experts called that those responsible for this aggression and those who incited violence must be brought to justice.

They also called on US political leaders to reduce tensions and create unity in the country, and strongly rejected incitement to violence and hatred.

In their statement, released on Monday, they advocated for a renewed commitment to peaceful pluralism, the rule of law and democratic governance.

WASHINGTON : In his last address as the president, Donald Trump wished the incoming Joe Biden administration luck but avoided saying the name of the man who defeated him in the November elections.

Trump has refused to offer a full concession to Democrat Biden, who won the November 3 election with 306 Electoral College votes to Trump’s 232. Biden will be inaugurated at 12:00 p.m. EST (1700 GMT) on Wednesday and Trump is not meeting with Biden beforehand or attending the swearing in as is customary in the handover of power to the White House. Trump instead plans to fly to Florida.

“This week, we inaugurate a new administration and pray for its success in keeping America safe and prosperous,” the Republican president said in recorded remarks. “We extend our best wishes, and we also want them to have luck — a very important word.”

Trump campaigned on a pledge to “Make America Great Again” but leaves office with more than 400,000 people dead of the novel coronavirus — the most in the world — whose risk he played down, an economy struggling from the pandemic, and relationships strained with key US allies.

“The greatest danger we face is a loss of confidence in ourselves, a loss of confidence in our national greatness,” Trump said.

For months Trump said without evidence that the election was rigged against him and applied pressure on state officials to overturn the results. At a rally near the White House on January 6 he encouraged followers to march on Congress while lawmakers were certifying Biden’s win.

Trump has been holed up at the White House for the final weeks of his term, reeling after the riot by his supporters at the Capitol that led to five deaths, including a Capitol Police officer.

The stampede, which followed a rally in which Trump repeated false allegations of election fraud and urged his supporters to fight, has overshadowed any efforts to emphasize the president’s legacy in his final days in office.

The House of Representatives impeached Trump on a charge of incitement, making him the first president in US history to be impeached twice. He will have to face the charges after leaving office.

In Tuesday’s farewell, without specifically mentioning Twitter’s decision to suspend his @realDonaldTrump account, Trump made reference to his complaint that free speech had been muzzled by the company. Twitter said it suspended the account because of the risk of the incitement of further violence.

“Shutting down free and open debate violates our core values and most enduring traditions,” Trump said. “America is not a timid nation of tame souls who need to be sheltered and protected from those with whom we disagree.”

In the recorded remarks Trump sought to highlight aspects of his presidency in which he took pride.

“We did what we came here to do, and so much more,” he said. “I took on the tough battles, the hardest fights, the most difficult choices — because that’s what you elected me to do.”

Trump noted Middle East peace deals his administration brokered and lauded his foreign policy agenda.

“We revitalised our alliances and rallied the nations of the world to stand up to China like never before,” he said. “I am especially proud to be the first president in decades who has started no new wars.”

Trump, who leaves amid deep divisions in the country, acknowledged the Capitol riots, which in the immediate aftermath of the violence he was slow to condemn.

“All Americans were horrified by the assault on our Capitol. Political violence is an attack on everything we cherish as Americans. It can never be tolerated,” he said.

And the president, who former advisers predict has lost much of a political future after the riots, suggested his movement would go on.

“Now, as I prepare to hand power over to a new administration at noon on Wednesday, I want you to know that the movement we started is only just beginning,” Trump said.

“I go from this majestic place with a loyal and joyful heart and optimistic spirit, and a supreme confidence that for our country and for our children, the best is yet to come.”