ISI has connections with terrorist groups: top US General

Varghese K. George, WASHINGTON:,  OCTOBER 04, 2017

Pakistan’s intelligence agency ISI has connections with terrorist groups and runs its own foreign policy, General Joseph Dunford, Chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, said on Tuesday. Responding to a question from Senator Joe Donnelly, at a congressional hearing of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Gen. Dunford said: “I think it’s clear to me that the ISI has connections with terrorist groups.”

His views were later echoed by Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis, who said: “We have seen the government of Pakistan come down on terrorism, while ISI appears to run its own foreign policy.”

Working with Pakistan

Mr. Mattis added that the U.S. would try to work with Pakistan “one more time”. “We need to try one more time to make this strategy work with them, by, with and through the Pakistanis, and if our best efforts fail, the President is prepared to take whatever steps are necessary,” he said.

Referring to China’s Belt and Road Initiative, Mr. Mattis said: ”In a globalised world, there are many belts and many roads, and no one nation should put itself into a position of dictating ‘one belt, one road’... That said, the One Belt One Road also goes through disputed territory, and I think, that in itself shows the vulnerability of trying to establish that sort of a dictate,” he added, in an oblique endorsement of the Indian position. India had boycotted the OBOR meeting earlier this year, citing sovereignty concerns as the China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) passes through Pakistan-occupied Kashmir.

A joint statement issued after Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s meeting with President Donald Trump in June had expressed similar sentiments.

Mr. Mattis, who met Mr. Modi and Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman last week in New Delhi, told the Senators that “the meetings could not have gone better”. He also described the state of play in bilateral ties as a “generational opportunity”.

He said Mr. Modi was taking India forward economically, “to a much higher level of living for his people, to a bigger role in the world.” "And that role, from our perspective, is a wholly positive one right now,” he added.

Reference

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