{"id":21164,"date":"2023-12-19T10:39:18","date_gmt":"2023-12-19T05:39:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dailyausaf.com\/en\/?p=21164"},"modified":"2023-12-19T10:39:18","modified_gmt":"2023-12-19T05:39:18","slug":"us-reaffirms-its-support-for-pakistans-free-and-fair-elections","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dailyausaf.com\/en\/pakistan\/us-reaffirms-its-support-for-pakistans-free-and-fair-elections\/","title":{"rendered":"US reaffirms its support for Pakistan’s free and fair elections"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cPakistan is a major non-NATO ally of the United States and a NATO partner,\u201d says State Department<\/p>\n

WASHINGTON: The United States has reiterated its support for free and fair elections in Pakistan, saying Washington does not take a position on any political party in the country.<\/p>\n

Responding to a question during a daily press briefing on Monday, State Department Spokesperson Matthew Miller said the US will continue to engage with the leaders elected by the people of Pakistan.<\/p>\n

The spokesperson said the US was also engaged with Pakistan on a bilateral basis to discuss their support for free and fair elections that are slated to take place on February 8 next year<\/p>\n

In August this year, US envoy in Islamabad Donald Blome met Chief Election Commissioner Sikander Sultan Raja and\u00a0reaffirmed the US support for “free and fair elections”.<\/p>\n

Responding to a question related to Chief of Army Staff (COAS) General Asim Munir’s ongoing visit to the US, Miller said the army chief met a number of senior officials at the State Department and Pentagon.<\/p>\n

\u201cPakistan is a major non-NATO ally of the United States and a NATO partner. We look forward to partnering with them on regional security and defence cooperation,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

Last week, Pakistan and the US agreed to enhance cooperation on matters related to counter-terrorism and defence collaboration during Gen Munir\u2019s maiden visit to Washington, according to a statement issued by the military’s media wing.<\/p>\n

Read More:\u00a0In their meeting with the UNSG, COAS restates Pakistan&#8217;s position on the Palestinian issue<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

The statement was issued following the army chief’s meeting with US officials including Secretary of State Antony J Blinken, Secretary of Defence General (retd) Llyod J Austin, Deputy Secretary of State Victoria Nuland, Deputy National Security Adviser Jonathan Finer and Chairman of Joint Chiefs of Staff General Charles Q Brown, the Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) said in a statement on December 15.<\/p>\n

“Both sides agreed to continue engagement for exploring potential avenues of bilateral collaboration in pursuit of shared interests,” the statement added.<\/p>\n

During the meetings with defence officials, counter-terrorism cooperation and defence collaboration were identified as core areas of cooperation.<\/p>\n

Both sides, the ISPR said, reiterated the intent to increase interaction and explore ways to expand the scope of mutually beneficial engagements.<\/p>\n

The army chief, during the meeting, underscored the importance of understanding each other\u2019s perspectives on regional security issues and developments affecting strategic stability in South Asia.<\/p>\n

In this context, COAS Munir also highlighted the importance of resolving the Kashmir issue in line with international law and relevant United Nations Security Council (UNSC) resolutions.<\/p>\n

General Asim’s visit came at a time when Pakistan is facing immense security challenges from both internal and external terror outfits with Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan suffering the most at the hands of terrorists.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cPakistan is a major non-NATO ally of the United States and a NATO partner,\u201d says State Department WASHINGTON: The United States has reiterated its support for free and fair elections in Pakistan, saying Washington does not take a position on any political party in the country. Responding to a question during a daily press briefing […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":21165,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,21,2],"tags":[10362,8648],"class_list":["post-21164","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-latest-news","category-news","category-pakistan","tag-election-2024","tag-us-secretary-of-state"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyausaf.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21164","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyausaf.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyausaf.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyausaf.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyausaf.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21164"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyausaf.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21164\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyausaf.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21165"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyausaf.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21164"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyausaf.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21164"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyausaf.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21164"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}