Pakistan, US NSAs discuss bilateral cooperation, Afghanistan

National Security Advisers (NSAs) of Pakistan and the United States have agreed to “sustain the momentum in Pak-US cooperation” at their follow-up meeting in Washington on Thursday during which they also discussed the situation in Afghanistan.

In a tweet on Thursday night, NSA Moeed Yusuf, who conferred with his American counterpart Jake Sullivan, called the meeting “positive”, without elaborating.

This was their second meeting after Geneva in May, as part of the high-level bilateral engagements between the two countries,

“We discussed the urgent need for a reduction in violence in Afghanistan and a negotiated political settlement to the conflict,” Jake Sullivan, the American NSA, said his tweet.

NSA Moeed Yusuf, who arrived in Washington on July 27, also wrote on the Twitter, “Took stock of progress made since our Geneva meeting & discussed bilateral, regional and global issues of mutual interest. Agreed to sustain the momentum in Pak-US bilateral cooperation.”

Sullivan wrote that during the meeting with his Pakistani counterpart, regional connectivity and security, and other areas of mutual cooperation were discussed along with a need for a ‘negotiated political settlement to the conflict’ in Afghanistan.

Besides the meetings between NSAs of the two countries, US State Secretary Antony Blinken has had contacts with Pakistan Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi and Army Chief of Staff General Qamar Javed Bajwa. In addition, US Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin has had conversations with with Gen. Bajwa.

Blinken returned to Washington on Thursday evening after visits to India and Kuwait.
Before his departure from New Delhi, he told an Indian channel,“Pakistan has a vital role to play in using its influence with the Taliban to do whatever it can to make sure that the Taliban does not seek to take the country by force. And it does have influence, and it does have a role to play, and we hope that it plays it.”