Islamabad hopes Biden will adopt ‘balanced approach’ toward India and Pakistan — UN envoy

In this picture taken 07 March 2003, Pakistan's Ambassador to the United Nations Munir Akram delivers a speech to the United Nations Security Council in New York. (File/ AFP)

• Pakistani permanent representative to UN says Washington will find Pakistan a ‘willing partner’ if it takes the national interests of both Delhi and Islamabad into account 
• Says Islamabad looking to find ‘areas of convergence’ to work together with the new government of Joe Biden

ISLAMABAD: Pakistani permanent representative to the United Nations, Munir Akram, said this week Islamabad hoped that the administration of United States president-elect Joe Biden would adopt a “balanced approach” toward both India and Pakistan.
While Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan had courted the administration of President Donald Trump in an attempt to rejig ties between Washington and Islamabad, the US ultimately moved even closer to Pakistani arch-rival New Delhi and signed a series of security agreements.
“We hope that, as in the past, the US would adopt a balanced approach toward both India and Pakistan, an approach that is equitable, that takes into account the national interests of not only India, but also Pakistan,” Akram told Newsweek. “If that is the case, if there is a balanced policy from Washington toward the continent, I think Washington would find Pakistan a willing partner.”
“Obviously, Pakistan would like to have better relations with the United States and we would be looking to find the areas of convergence where we can work together with the U.S,” the envoy added.
Tensions have been running particularly high between nuclear-armed neighbors Pakistan and Indian since last year, when New Delhi stripped the special status of the disputed Kashmir region, unleashing anger in Islamabad. Pakistan and India both claim Kashmir in full and rule it in part.
On Saturday, Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi and Maj. Gen. Babar Iftikhar, the director general of the military media wing, said Islamabad had “irrefutable evidence” of India’s sponsorship of militancy on Pakistani soil and would present it to the United Nations (UN) and the Organization of Islamic Cooperation.
Islamabad has long claimed that India sponsors militant groups in Pakistan — which India denies — but Saturday’s announcement at a joint press conference of the country’s top diplomatic and military officials provided specific accusations.
Pakistan and the United States have for long had a complicated relationship. Officially allies in fighting terrorism, their relationship has been bound on the one hand by Washington’s dependence on Pakistan to supply its troops in Afghanistan but on the other hand, over the years, ties have also been plagued by accusations that Afghan Taliban militants and the Haqqani network that target American troops in Afghanistan are allowed to shelter on Pakistani soil. Islamabad denies this.
In recent months, however, Pakistan has played a productive behind-the-scenes role to bring the Afghan Taliban to the negotiation table and eventually participate in the intra-Afghan dialogue with the Kabul government, earning Pakistan acknowledgment for its positive role in helping move the peace process forward.