FO summons US envoy to protest Biden-Modi joint statement

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan summoned US Deputy Chief of Mission Andrew Schofer to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Monday evening and handed him a demarche to protest over the US-India joint statement issued on June 22 follwing a meeting between President Joe Biden and Narendra Modi.

According to a Foreign Office (FO) press release, “Pakistan’s concerns and disappointment at the unwarranted, one-sided and misleading references to it in the joint statement were conveyed to the US side”.

It was stressed that the US should refrain from issuing statements that might be construed as encouragement of India’s “baseless and politically motivated” narrative against Pakistan.

It was also emphasized that counter-terrorism cooperation between Pakistan and the US had been progressing well and that an enabling environment, centered around trust and understanding, was imperative to further solidify Pakistan-US ties.

The joint statement released by the White House after Indian Prime Minister Modi’s visit to Washington called on Pakistan to tackle its terrorism problem.

“They (India-US) strongly condemned cross-border terrorism, the use of terrorist proxies and called on Pakistan to take immediate action to ensure that no territory under its control is used for launching terrorist attacks,” the joint statement issued by White House said.

The FO reacted to the joint statement earlier, pointing out that “India habitually uses terrorism bogey to deflect attention from its brutal repression of the Kashmiri people in Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir, and maltreatment of its minorities. It is thus completely ill-placed to cast any aspersions on Pakistan and its fight against terrorism”.