Pakistan: Pakistan’s Foreign Ministry has summoned the United States embassy’s deputy chief of mission to express concern over a statement last week by US President Mr. Joe Biden and Indian Prime Minister Mr. Narendra Modi that called on Pakistan to ensure its territory was not used as a base for attacks by armed groups.

The US-India statement was released after a meeting between Mr. Biden and Mr. Modi at the White House and received criticism from Pakistan, which called it contrary to diplomatic norms.

“It was stressed that the United States should refrain from issuing statements that may be construed as encouragement of India’s baseless and politically motivated narrative against Pakistan,” Pakistan’s foreign office noted in a statement.

“It was also emphasised that counterterrorism cooperation between Pakistan and the US had been progressing well and that an enabling environment, centred around trust and understanding, was imperative to further solidifying Pakistan-US ties,” the statement added.

US State Department spokesperson Mr. Matt Miller told reporters that Pakistan had taken important steps to counter armed groups but said Washington advocated for more to be done.

“At the same time, however, we have also been consistent on the importance of Pakistan continuing to take steps to permanently dismantle all terrorist groups, including Lashkar-e-Taiba [LeT] and Jaish-e-Mohammad [Jaish-e-Muhammad or JeM], and their various front organisations, and we will raise the issue regularly with Pakistani officials,” Mr. Miller added.

Relations between India and Pakistan have been fraught for years. Since their independence from Britain in 1947, India and Pakistan have fought three wars, two of them over the Muslim-majority Himalayan region of Kashmir, which they both claim in full but rule in part.

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