Will continue to eliminate terror safe havens: US

The US said it will continue to work with countries in the South Asian region to eliminate safe havens for terrorists but refrained from commenting on a Bill in the Congress that America should declare Pakistan a “terrorist state.”

The US also called for a “meaningful” Indo-Pak dialogue to address differences, including the Kashmir issue.

State department spokes-person John Kirby, however, did not comment on a bill in the Congress that the US should declare Pakistan a “terrorist state.”

Asked if the government would support the bill and a similar online petition, Mr Kirby at his daily press briefing said: “I have not seen anything specifically about the... such a bill. I’m not going to comment on whatever pending legislation may be coming in that regard.” “So we’re going to continue to work with the governments in the region to try to address these common threats and challenges, and we’ve always said that more can be done about the safe havens and that’s we’re going to, again, try to work as cooperatively as we can to that end,” Mr Kirby said.

He added that the US’ position on Kashmir has not changed and it is for India and Pakistan to address the problem.

“On the Kashmir issue, our position has not cha-nged. We want this to be worked out between both the sides, the issue of Kas-hmir. And generally, we obviously want to see the tensions that exist right now be brought down and for dialogue to take its place... meaningful dialogue to try to address these issues bilaterally between the countries,” Mr Kirby said. “There are still differences of opinion that exist between them; and as I said earlier, we want them to work through those differences.”