Lahore: United States Defence Secretary Ash Carter asserted that India and Pakistan were equal partners and friends of the US Government and that there was no Indo-Pak hyphenation from their perspective.
The Dawn quoted Carter speaking at the Council of Foreign Relations here ahead of his three-day visit to India saying, “The US has a ‘whole global agenda’ with India, covering all issues, while the relationship with Pakistan has to do with issues of terrorism and Afghanistan.”
Adding that the days are gone when America only dealt with ‘India as the other side of the Pakistan coin or Pakistan as the other side of the India coin’, Carter said that both the nations were respected partners and friends and found themselves in very different situations.
“I know that there are those in India and Pakistan who are still glued to that way of thinking. But the US put that behind us some time ago. With respect to Pakistan, which also is an important security partner, we have a whole lot of issues of which counter-terrorism looms largest. And we work with the Pakistanis all the time on that,” Carter said.
The Defence Secretary stated in his discussion with Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar, the progress that the two countries had made on major military projects such as building an aircraft carrier and jet fighter and engine collaboration, would be deliberated upon. (ANI)