Pakistan vows ‘cold-blooded response’ to Donald Trump aid cuts

The US State Department said today it was suspending all security assistance to the country until it takes action against terrorist groups such as the Afghan Taliban.

Mr Trump’s administration had already delayed $255million (£188 million) in aid to Islamabad.

Ties between the nations plummeted on January 1 when the President lashed out on Twitter against Islamabad’s “lies and deceit” despite receiving $33 billion (£24 billion) in aid from the US.

In a BBC interview Minister of Defence Khurram Dastgir Khan said there would be a “cold-blooded response” to Washington’s actions.

Asked if the US could take military action inside Pakistan, he warned: “Donald Trump is a highly temperamental person, therefore any such possibility can’t be completely ruled out.”

And Pakistan foreign minister Khawaja Asif unleashed a series of scathing tweets about Mr Trump, saying the nation had trusted the US “blindly”.

He raged: “You ask what we’ve done? From our bases you carried out 57,800 attacks on Afghanistan.

“Thousands of our civilians and soldiers became victims of the war initiated by you.”

State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert said today she could not provide a value for the suspended aid because the administration was still calculating what would be affected. 

She said some of the aid could still be permitted if Islamabad takes decisive action against the groups.

Ms Nauert said: ”Today we can confirm that we are suspending security assistance only to Pakistan at this time until the Pakistani government takes decisive action against groups including the Afghan Taliban and the Haqqani network. 

“We consider them to be destabilising the region and also targeting US personnel.”

Analysts say there are limits to how much the US can fracture relations, since Pakistan cannot be isolated or completely sidelined, because of its proximity to Afghanistan.

Huma Yusuf, a Wilson Center Global Fellow, said: “There is really no way forward for the United States in Afghanistan without Pakistan playing some kind of cooperative and collaborative role.”


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