ISLAMABAD, Dec 8 (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News – 8th Dec, 2022 ) :The experts on Thursday said that bloc politics in Pakistan-US bilateral relationships should be avoided to ensure better relations between the two countries in diverse sectors.
They were speaking at a roundtable conference on the ‘US-Pakistan Relationship’ jointly organized here by the Islamabad Policy Research Institute (IPRI) and the United States Institute for Peace (USIP). The conference reviewed the level of the existing Pak-US relations and choreographed a roadmap for intensive cooperation on a broader horizon between the two countries.
Vice-President USIP’s Asia Center Dr Andres Wilder, South Asia Director USIP Tamanna Salikuddin, Acting Country Director Pakistan USIP Imran Khan, and Special Initiatives Associate USIP Maryam Kiyani were present on the occasion, while IPRI’s President Ambassador (retd) Dr Raza Muhammad, Director Research IPRI Brig (retd) Dr Raashid Wali Janjua, and Ambassador Asif Durrani also attended the conference.
Pakistan should be assisted in its quest to avert the risk of financial default, and US aid agencies and the relevant departments should support Islamabad in pitching investment opportunities for growth, the experts suggested.
Both the think tanks spelt out their projected policies on India-Pakistan relations and counter-terrorism realms and observed that the US should maintain strong engagement with Pakistan and encourage maintenance of the LoC ceasefire and back-channel talks for crisis management.
The urge for a bilateral dialogue between India and Pakistan was also stressed, apart from encouraging people-to-people exchanges, religious tourism, and trilateral cooperation on agriculture and digital payments.
Likewise, on counter-terrorism, the speakers from both organisations agreed that Pakistan and the US should take a unified and coherent political approach to reduce terror threats emanating from Afghanistan and combine counter-terrorism with political coordination.
The roundtable, while illustrating a trajectory of bilateral relations, agreed that a high-level of structured dialogue should commence involving honest and candid assessments of mutual issues.