US-Pak ties not at the ‘expense of our relationship with India’: State Secy Rubio

DOHA(Qatar): US Secretary of State Marco Rubio has dismissed growing concerns that Washington’s expanding strategic ties with Pakistan are meant to sideline India, noting that the relationship with Islamabad would not undermine the US’ “deep, historic, and important” partnership with New Delhi.

The US State Secretary, while addressing the press en route to Doha, Qatar, on Saturday, asserted that New Delhi understands the necessity of engaging multiple nations in a mature diplomatic framework.

“I don’t think anything we’re doing with Pakistan comes at the expense of our relationship or friendship with India, which is deep, historic, and important,” Rubio told reporters when asked about India’s apprehensions over the recent surge in the US-Pakistan relationship.

Acknowledging India’s concerns, the top US diplomat said, “We know they’re concerned for obvious reasons because of the tensions that have existed between Pakistan and India historically.”

However, he emphasised the broader imperative of global engagement, noting that Washington sees an opportunity to expand its “strategic relationship” with Pakistan and that it aims to work with countries on matters of common interest.

“We have to have relations with a lot of different countries. We see an opportunity to expand our strategic relationship with Pakistan, and that’s our job – to try to figure out how many countries we can find and how we can work with them on things of common interest,” Rubio said.

He further praised India’s diplomatic maturity, noting that “the Indians are very mature when it comes to diplomacy and things of that nature. They have some relationships with countries that we don’t have relationships with. It’s part of a mature, pragmatic foreign policy.”

Rubio’s remark comes during a time when the Trump administration has been increasingly renewing its engagement with Pakistan, which has reportedly caused concern in New Delhi.

In May, following India’s Operation Sindoor, which targeted nine terror camps in Pakistan and Pakistan-occupied Jammu and Kashmir (PoJK), which came in retaliation to Pakistan’s sponsored terror attack in Jammu and Kashmir’s Pahalgam on April 22 that killed 26 people in the name of religion, both countries had agreed to halt the full-scale military action, after the Pakistan Director General of Military Operations (DGMO) called their Indian counterpart for cessation of hostilities.

However, US President Donald Trump had repeatedly claimed credit for helping de-escalate tensions between the two nuclear nations, a claim India had categorically denied.

Meanwhile, Pakistan had welcomed Trump’s claims, even nominating him for a Nobel Peace Prize.

Trade tensions have also surfaced, with the US imposing 50 per cent tariffs on Indian exports, 25 per cent of it due to India’s purchase of Russian oil, which Washington claims fuels Moscow’s war efforts in Ukraine, compared to 19 per cent for Pakistan, as well as signing agreements with Islamabad on mineral mining and oil exploration. (ANI)