Reset in Pak-US ties in the offing as Blinken engages Bilawal

First high-level engagement has been made as the United States of America’s Secretary of State Antony Blinken congratulated Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto and invited him to visit the US for a ministerial meeting in New York next month.

The readout issued by the US State Department said: “The Secretary underscored the resolute US-Pakistan commitment to Afghan stability and combating terrorism. The Secretary and Foreign Minister also highlighted ongoing engagement on trade and investment, climate, energy, health and education”. In a pleasantly surprising move, young Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto welcomed his US counterpart Blinken (in a telephone conversation).

It may be recalled President Biden did not call Imran Khan. It was against the backdrop of then Trump Admin which paid “attention” to the PTI government as Islamabad was helping out the US in withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan, and the talks with the Afghan Taliban.

One may recall the famous quote of Imran Khan at Islamabad Airport after his return from Washington: “I feel as if I have won another World Cup (successful US visit). He was alluding to his 1992 World Cup trophy.

The longer view has always been the episodic nature of ties between the two countries confining the US-Pakistan ties to a transactional relationship. Once the deliverables on key issues like Afghanistan, terrorism and democracy were no longer there, the relations snapped back to reality.Clocking back to the current Biden Admin, Washington has found itself very much focused on Ukraine in its foreign policy.

The thaw in the relations comes amid new calculations in the US foreign policy: Washington, which is preoccupied with the Ukraine war, is refocusing its attention on other foreign policy arenas i.e. Middle East, China, the Israeli/Palestinian conflict and North Korea etc. Interestingly, CIA Chief Bill Burns visited Saudi Arabia and met Crown Prince Muhammed bin Salman last week. It was an unprecedented move by the US Admin given the frosty relations between Riyadh and DC beset by the Khashoggi saga, Yemen war and Iran nuclear deal.

Afghanistan’s counter-terrorism concern is back on the table as a common policy convergence between Pakistan and Washington. Hence, the renewed security engagement with Islamabad is on the cards. Expect security folks from Washington to visit Islamabad.

Of late, small concessions were also conceded to the human rights lobby in Washington and indirectly to Islamabad, as the Biden Admin criticised India as a major offender of human rights of minorities in the occupied Kashmir and the country generally.Pakistan and the US have enjoyed robust bilateral relations from security and politics to trade and culture.

The bond of culture is such that Pakistan is the third-largest English-speaking country after India. If given a chance, there will be no embassy except that of US where a beeline of Pakistanis would prefer to seek visas to go to the US for tourism, study and settlement, not Russia or China for that matter.

Pakistan needs the US’s support in IMF and World Bank financial engagements as Washington has the highest drawing rights in these institutions. So is its geopolitical backing in FATF.

Locked in hostile relations with India, Islamabad still expects US potential pressure on its strategic partner i.e. India to leash New Delhi in any conceivable confrontation before it spirals out into a nuclear exchange.Last but not the least, Afghanistan, counter-terrorism effort and nuclear stability in the region and beyond are still areas of mutual concern and cooperation between the two countries.

The Shehbaz government has rightly emphasised doubling down on its engagement with the Biden Admin and Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto is well placed to posit his government’s vision for improving the relations.

Jan Achakzai is a geopolitical analyst and a politician from Balochistan. He is also chairman of the Institute of New Horizons (INH) & Balochistan. He tweets @Jan_Achakzai