U.S. freezes aid to Pakistan

U.S. freezes aid to Pakistan

The U.S. Congress has recently made a unanimous decision to put on ice a total of $ 700 million that were to given to Pakistan as aid. Both the House of Representatives as well as the Senate have taken the decision on grounds that Pakistan has not been able
to effectively fight off the militancy spreading in the region.

More specifically, the U.S. Congress has laid down the condition that Pakistan will not be getting the aid unless and until the country comes up with a fool proof strategy to combat the excessive use of the Improvised Explosive Devices in the region.

The tough stance that the Congress of the U.S. has taken in this regard is going to worsen the relationship between the two countries. The bilateral relations which were already tense reached a record low recently when two of the Pakistani border posts were
attacked by the NATO forces in the form of air strikes. The attack was carried out for a period of two hours during which the NATO forces were asked by their Pakistani counterparts to put an end to the air strikes but there was no positive response from the
other end. The result of the attack was that 24 of the Pakistani soldiers lost their lives.

The aftermath of the tragic incident was that the relations between U.S. and Pakistan deteriorated immediately as negative sentiment and hostility in the general public in Pakistan reached its peak against the U.S. as a result, Pakistan decided to boycott
the Bonn conference on Afghanistan and gave the U.S. forces the ultimatum to vacate the Shamsi air base.

Buck McKeon (R-Calif.), who is the House Armed Services Committee Chairman, made the following comments on the issue:  “We’ve had some shaky relations lately with Pakistan. We need them, they need us. But one of the things that has bothered me the most in
this war in Afghanistan is the loss of life and limb to IEDs.”

Apart from restricting aid to Pakistan, the Congress of the U.S. has also required of the Pentagon that they come up with a strategy that would generally increase the effectiveness of providing aid to Pakistan.

Short URL: https://www.newspakistan.pk/?p=6021

Posted by Rabiya Maqbool on Dec 13 2011. Filed under Pakistan, Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry