Fri 20 December 2019:
(REUTERS) The Trump administration has approved a resumption of Pakistan’s participation in a coveted US military training and educational program more than a year after it was suspended, the State Department said on Thursday.
The decision to resume Islamabad’s participation in the International Military Education and Training Program, or IMET – for more than a decade a pillar of US-Pakistani military ties – underscores warming relations that have followed meetings this year between US President Donald Trump and Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan.
Washington also has credited Islamabad with helping to facilitate negotiations on a US troop withdrawal from Afghanistan. The talks recently resumed between the United States and the Taliban, who US officials say receive sanctuary and other aid from the Pakistan’s military-led intelligence agency. Pakistan denies the charge.
The State Department administers IMET. It was a small facet of US security aid programs for Pakistan worth some $2 billion that remain suspended on orders that Trump abruptly issued in January 2018 to compel the nuclear-armed South Asian nation to crackdown on extremist militants.
After an attack earlier this year by a Pakistan-based extremist group that killed at least 40 Indian paramilitary troops, US officials called on Islamabad to take “sustained and irreversible action” against militants operating from its territory.
A State Department spokeswoman said in an email that Trump’s 2018 decision to suspend security assistance authorized “narrow exceptions for programs that support vital US national security interests.” The decision to restore Pakistani participation in IMET was “one such exception,” she said.
The program “provides an opportunity to increase bilateral cooperation between our countries on shared priorities,” she added. “We want to continue to build on this foundation through concrete actions that advance regional security and stability.”
The restart of the program, however, is subject to approval by Congress. Republican and Democratic aides for the Senate and House of Representatives committees with jurisdiction over the process did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
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