Pakistani Minister of Foreign Affairs Khawaja Asif said that the US was behaving toward Pakistan as “a friend who always betrays” after Washington suspended security aid and US President Donald Trump accused Islamabad of lies and deceit over many years.
Pakistan Movement for Justice leader and Legislator Imran Khan, who has been tipped as the next prime minister, said it was time for Pakistan to “delink” from the US and run down the US’s diplomatic and intelligence presence in what is a sensitive strategic area.
Washington has accused Pakistan of playing a “double game” by assisting the Afghan Taliban and Haqqani network militants who are causing chaos in Afghanistan.
Islamabad has denied this and accused the US of disrespecting its vast sacrifices in fighting terrorism, with Pakistani casualties numbering in the tens of thousands.
Anti-American sentiment and tense US-Pakistan ties are some way off their recent nadir in 2011, when late al-Qaeda head Osama bin Laden was killed in a secret US raid inside Pakistan, but the harsh rhetoric is likely to make it harder to mend future ties.
“The US behavior is neither that of an ally nor of a friend,” Asif told local Capital TV late on Thursday. “It is a friend who always betrays.”
Small groups of students chanting “death to America” and “death to Trump” burnt US flags and torched photos of Trump after Friday prayers in Islamabad and in the eastern city of Lahore. The organized protests ended swiftly.
Worsening ties might push Pakistan further into the arms of its long-time ally, China, which backed Islamabad after the fallout from Trump’s tweet.
Beijing’s diplomatic and financial support has also strengthened Pakistan’s hand, analysts say.
On Friday, Pakistan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs criticized what it called “shifting goalposts” after the US confirmed that it would suspend all security assistance, believed to total at least US$900 million, until Pakistan stopped assisting militants.
Other official government statements in response to Trump’s tweet have been measured, but Asif and several other prominent politicians have lashed out repeatedly.
“It is time for Pakistan to delink from the US,” Khan said in a statement, which called for an immediate removal of “excessive US diplomatic, non-diplomatic and intelligence personnel from Pakistan.”
Khan also called for a suspension of land and air transport routes through Pakistan that the US uses to resupply NATO troops in Afghanistan, a move Pakistani officials privately said is unlikely unless relations drastically deteriorate.
The US aid suspension was announced days after Trump tweeted that the US had foolishly given Pakistan US$33 billion in aid over 15 years and had been rewarded with “nothing but lies & deceit, thinking of our leaders as fools.”
The aid suspension was largely expected by Islamabad, but Pakistani officials were taken aback by Trump’s withering tweet and the tone of US announcements.
“The FBI, his political opponents, African-American football players are used to Trump criticizing them like this on Twitter — we are not used to it,” one Pakistani government minister said. “We were seriously shocked.”
Politicians such as Asif and Khan have been delivering anti-American statements partly to placate domestic audiences with one eye on general elections due toward the middle of the year, analysts said.
“This is the election period and for the first time in Pakistan’s history, anti-Americanism will become an issue in an election campaign,” Pakistani writer and analyst Zahid Hussain said.
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