Progress in Afghan peace may lead to Trump-Khan meeting — Pakistan foreign minister

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo meets Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi at the US State Department in Washington on Oct 2, 2018. (AFP Photo)

• Says breakthrough in US-Taliban negotiations not a precondition for meeting but would create ‘favorable’ environment
• Pakistan will continue to stand by Saudi Arabia if it is threatened, Qureshi reiterates

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s Foreign Minister said on Friday that a meeting between Prime Minister Imran Khan and United States President Donald Trump could materialize if progress was achieved in ongoing talks between representatives from the Taliban and the United States to find a negotiated settlement to the long Afghan war.
Last year, the Donald Trump administration restarted diplomatic efforts to end the 18-year-old conflict in Afghanistan after it appointed a veteran diplomat, Zalmay Khalilzad, as special representative for reconciliation in Afghanistan and launched several rounds of direct negotiations with the Taliban, which have continued this year.
In 2018, Trump asked for Pakistan’s help with faltering Afghan peace talks in a letter to new Prime Minister Khan in which he made clear that Islamabad’s assistance was “fundamental” to the health of the two countries’ strained relationship.
In an interview to Urdu News on Friday. Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi said progress in the ongoing talks in Doha could establish the grounds for a meeting between Khan and Trump.
When asked if progress in talks was a precondition for a Trump-Khan meeting, Mahmood said: “Don’t call it a precondition but I believe that if negotiations [between the Taliban and the US] move forward, then the environment will become favorable.”
“Negotiations [between the Taliban and the United States] are continuing in Doha,” he said. “Any headway in them can lead to a new opening in bilateral relations [between the US and Pakistan].”
Officially allies in fighting terrorism, Pakistan and the United States have a complicated relationship, bound by Washington’s dependence on Pakistan to supply its troops in Afghanistan, where the United States still has 14,000 troops, but plagued by accusations Islamabad is playing a double game.
US officials have long been pushing Pakistan to lean on Taliban leaders, who Washington says are based inside Pakistan, to bring them to the negotiating table. Pakistani officials deny offering safe havens to the Afghan Taliban and say their influence on the group has waned over the years.
In November 2018, Trump said Pakistan doesn’t “do a damn thing” for the United States despite billions of dollars in US aid. He defended cutting aid to Islamabad and also suggested Pakistani authorities knew Osama bin Laden’s location prior to his killing by US troops in a raid inside Pakistan in 2011.
Khan hit back by saying the United States should not blame Pakistan for its failings in Afghanistan.
“Both [PM Imran and President Trump] are important personalities, [and both are] deeply interested in [establishing] peace and stability in the region,” foreign minister Qureshi said.
Speaking about recent attacks on Saudi oil facilities, one on tankers off the UAE coast and another drone attack on pumping stations, Qureshi said: “Pakistan had stood by [the kingdom] whenever it was threatened and will continue to do so.”