US consistant with asking Pakistan to disband terror groups: State Dept

Washington, June 27 (IANS) Less than a week after the US and India issued a joint statement in which the two nations vowed to stand together to counter global terrorism, the Department of State said that Washington has been consistent on the importance of Pakistan continuing to take steps to permanently disband all terrorist groups.

Department spokesman Matthew Miller made the remarks during a press conference on Monday when he was asked to comment on Pakistan dismissing the joint statement as "baseless and one-sided".

In his reply, Miller said: "We remain committed to working with Pakistan to address the shared threat posed by terrorist groups throughout the region.  

"The Pakistani people have suffered tremendously from terrorist attacks over the years. We do recognise that Pakistan has taken some important steps to counter terrorist groups in line with the completion of its Financial Action Task Force actions plans.

"Moreover, we commend both Pakistan and India for continuing to uphold the ceasefire along the Line of Control."

He however, said that at the same time, the US has also been "consistent on the importance of Pakistan continuing to take steps to permanently disband all terrorist groups, including Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM), and their various front organisations".  

"We will raise the issue regularly with Pakistani officials, and will continue to work together to counter mutual terrorist threats...," the spokesman added.

When asked about the joint statement not addressing concerns regarding human rights and religious freedom violations in India, Miller said that "we regularly raise concerns about human rights in our conversations with Indian officials".

"And you saw President (Joe) Biden speak to this himself in the joint press conference that he held with Prime Minister (Narendra) Modi." 

Miller's remarks came less than a week after the joint statement was issued on June 22 during Prime Minister's state visit to the US.

The statement said that Biden and Modi reiterated a call for concerted action against all UN-listed terrorist groups including Al Qaeda, Islamic State, LeT, JeM, and Hizb-ul-Mujhahideen.  

The two leader also strongly condemned cross-border terrorism, the use of terrorist proxies and called on Pakistan to take immediate action to ensure that no territory under its control is used for launching terrorist attacks.