National Security Adviser Dr Moeed Yusuf on Friday met US Deputy Secretary of State Wendy R Sherman and said the international community should engage with the Taliban-led government in Afghanistan.
NSA Moeed Yusuf was meeting with the State Department’s number two, who is in Pakistan on a two-day official visit. After the visit of the CIA Director William J Burns, Sherman is the senior-most US official to visit Pakistan.
Issues surrounding the situation in the region after the Taliban takeover were discussed in the meeting. The two also exchanged views on economic cooperation, trade and the security situation in the region.
“The international community needs to engage with Afghanistan’s new interim government,” Moeed Yusuf said.
Yusuf told Sherman that Indian atrocities in Kashmir was creating further instability in the region.
Earlier on Thursday, during a weekly press briefing, Foreign Office Spokesperson Asim Iftikhar had said that the United States had a “special responsibility” towards addressing the grave and continuing human rights violations in Indian Occupied Kashmir (IoK), and the issue would be raised with Wendy R. Sherman during talks at the Foreign Office.
“Violations of human rights in IIOJ&K is an ongoing situation. We are taking it up at all levels — through bilateral and multilateral channels, including particularly with the UN leadership. I am certain this issue is going to be raised during the visit of the Deputy Secretary of State. We think that important countries like the US have a very special responsibility – as the permanent member of the UNSC and as advocates of human rights globally – in addressing the grave concerns regarding the human rights situation in IIOJK,” the FO spokesman had said.
