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US urges Pakistan to shut down access to terrorists
[DAWN] The United States (US) State Department on Wednesday urged Pakistain to "shut down access to areas inside their borders to terrorists".State Department Spokesperson John Kirby in a press briefing, when asked to comment on recent remarks by Jamaat-ud-Dawa ...the front organization of Lashkar-e-Taiba... (JuD) chief Hafiz Saeed  ...founder of Lashkar-e-Taiba and its false-mustache offshoot Jamaat-ud-Dawa. The United Nations declared the JuD a terrorist organization in 2008 and Hafiz Saeed a terrorist as its leader. Hafiz, JuD and LeT are wholly-owned subsidiaries of the Pak intel apparatus, so that amounted to squat... on Pakistain, responded by saying, "I'm not going to dignify the comments of an avowed terrorist one way or the other." He added, "We continue to work with Pakistain and continue to urge Pakistain to take steps to shut down access to areas inside their borders to terrorists, to terrorist individuals and to terrorist groups." The US has previously also asked Pakistain to take action against militancy. Earlier, during a State Department briefing in August, deputy spokesperson Mark Toner said, "We’ve been very clear with the highest levels of the government of Pakistain that they must target all Death Eater groups, and that includes those that target Pakistain’s neighbours, and they must also close all safe havens." "We obviously believe that Pakistain needs to do all it can to confront all Death Eaters operating on its soil," he said, adding, "We’ve seen it make progress; we want to see more progress on its part." PPP leader Aitzaz during a joint session of parliament last week was of the view that Pakistain was isolated because it gave freedom to non-state actors. "The government has been completely unsuccessful in imposing restrictions on non-state actors according to the National Action Plan." Posted by: Fred 2016-10-14 |
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