State Department says Pakistan continues to be important partner in region: Islamabad trashes US report on human rights as ‘unfair and politically motivated’ The United States has made it clear that the recent sanctions imposed on companies allegedly supplying missile components to Pakistan will not dent the bilateral relations with Pakistan. The State Department emphatically declared that there’s ‘absolutely no’ undercurrent of discord between the United States and Pakistan, despite recent sanctions. Addressing the daily news briefing in Washington on Thursday, State Department Principal Deputy Spokesperson Vedant Patel played down concerns about political tensions arising from the sanctions, saying: “Pakistan continues to be one of our most important partners in the region. There continues to be a lot of cooperation that we have with the government of Pakistan, especially in the security space and trade sector.”

Patel recalled that the Pakistani finance minister was in Washington last week and held consultations with members of the State Department. “This is a robust relationship, and we look to continue strengthening it,” he added. Last week, the Biden administration had imposed sanctions on three Chinese and one Belarusian companies for allegedly supplying dual-use components for Pakistan’s missile programme, a charge Islamabad rejected as incorrect. However, on Tuesday, Patel clarified during his daily briefing that the sanctions were imposed because these entities were “proliferators of weapons of mass destruction and the means of their delivery”. He said on October 23, the United States had also designated three Chinese entities for allegedly supplying components to Pakistan’s missile programme.

 “We’re going to continue to disrupt and take actions against proliferation networks and concerning weapons of mass destruction procurement activities wherever they may occur,” he declared. Islamabad trashes US report on human rights The Foreign Office has dismissed the assessment of Pakistan’s human rights situation in the recently-launched US State Department’s Human Rights Report as “unfair and politically motivated” and criticised it for lacking objectivity. The 2023 US Human Rights Report on Pakistan underscored a concerning status quo in human rights violations, with no notable improvements. The report alleged a range of serious issues, including unlawful killings, enforced disappearances, torture, harsh prison conditions, arbitrary arrests and a lack of fair public trials, all indicative of a broader culture of impunity.

In its response released in Islamabad on Thursday, the Foreign Office said: “The US State Department’s annual exercises of preparing such unsolicited reports lack objectivity and remain inherently flawed in their methodology. These reports use domestic social lens to judge human rights in other countries in a politically biased manner.” The FO criticised the report for exhibiting double standards, arguing that such attitude undermined the discourse on international human rights. “It is deeply concerning that a report purported to highlight human rights situations around the world ignores or downplays the most urgent hotspots of gross human rights violations such as in Gaza and Indian Occupied Jammu & Kashmir,” the FO stated, emphasising that only a report with political motivations could neglect the grave conditions in Gaza, including the weaponization of humanitarian aid and the killing of over 34,000 civilians.

Credit: Independent News Pakistan (INP)