Trump's praise being seen as 'good beginning'

ISLAMABAD: The arrest of Daesh commander Jaffar alias Sharifullah by Pakistan agencies, his handing over to the US authorities, and appreciation of the act by US President Donald Trump are being widely hailed. Special Assistant to the Prime Minister (SAPM) Syed Tariq Fatemi termed it “good beginning” and maintained that “it appears that Pakistan government and its agencies handled a very difficult task with fair amount of acumen.”

Talking to The News, Fatemi, who had served as Pakistan’s envoy for the United States, said that appreciation coming from Donald Trump, who is generally not inclined praising anyone, came out generously while addressing the Congress.

He regarded observations of the US president as good omen for the future ties of the two countries. “Enemies of Pakistan who are in habit of exploiting small things about Pakistan by enlarging their view, would be licking their wounds,” he said.

He reminded that Pakistan abiding by the international laws, handed over the terrorist to the country against which the terrorist had committed heinous offence.

Former ambassador to the US and the UK Dr Maleeha Lodhi said that the arrest shows that counter-terrorism cooperation between Pakistan and the US remains robust even though relations are largely confined to a narrow bandwidth focused on counter terrorism.

Responding the query by The News, Dr Lodhi said that one has to be careful not to over read the significance of a single event for Pakistan-US relations that have been at a crossroads since the US exit from Afghanistan in 2021 and need high-level engagement for a reset.

Dr Lodhi recalled that despite the low point in relations in the Biden years, counter-terrorism cooperation and military-to-military ties have remained strong and underline that relations are still anchored on security issues. She was of the view that this certainly draws attention to the fact that Afghanistan remains the source of terrorism as many terror groups still reside and operate from there. This was also confirmed by a report last month by the UN Security Council’s (UNSC) Sanctions Monitoring Team.

Pakistan Ex-Servicemen Society President Lt Gen (retd) Malik Abdul Qayyum said that Trump’s appreciation of Pakistan for its counter-terrorism endeavours is good but it is not good enough.

Pakistan is the worst sufferer of terrorism which is being supported by India’s Raw and Afghanistan’s NDS using portion of American state-of-the-art military hardware worth $7.1 billion left in Afghanistan but the American leadership unfortunately has been in slumber.

In a talk, he said that that 5th generation F-35 fighter jets being offered to India by the US would be used against Pakistan because India can’t compete with China which is in the process of building 6th generation fighter in addition to Deepseek AI capabilities, stealth submarines, hypersonic missiles and under-water drones capability. He lauded Pakistan Army that bravely foiled terrorists attempt to enter the Bannu cantonment.

He suggested that instead of putting sanctions on Afghanistan, the US may recognise them, continue their financial help, but only on one condition that they will honour their pledge made at Doha that their space will not be allowed to be used by terrorists.