Pakistan summons US envoy to protest trump's anti-Pakistani tweets

Iran Press/ Asia: Pakistan has summoned the US Chargé d'Affaires in Islamabad, Paul Jones on Tuesday after US President Donald Trump's tweets on Pakistan's role in fighting terrorism and the capture of Osama bin Laden.

According to sputnik news agency, the development comes on the heels of Washington's announcement that the US would cut financial support to Pakistan due to Islamabad's way of handling terrorism in the country.

"The Foreign Secretary called in the US CdA Ambassador Paul Jones to register a strong protest on the unwarranted and unsubstantiated allegations made against Pakistan. Rejecting the insinuations about OBL [Osama bin Laden], Foreign Secretary reminded the US CdA that it was Pakistan’s intelligence cooperation that provided the initial evidence to trace the whereabouts of OBL," Pakistan's Foreign Ministry said in a statement, adding that "baseless rhetoric about Pakistan was totally unacceptable":

The statement came shortly after Trump tweeted that Pakistan hadn't given 'anything to the US in return' for billions of dollars in aid, and suggested that Pakistani authorities knew al-Qaeda's ex-leader Osama bin Laden's whereabouts before his killing by US special forces in 2011 in a raid on his house in Pakistan.

Of course we should have captured Osama Bin Laden long before we did. I pointed him out in my book just BEFORE the attack on the World Trade Center. President Clinton famously missed his shot. We paid Pakistan Billions of Dollars & they never told us he was living there. Fools!..

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 19, 2018

....We no longer pay Pakistan the $Billions because they would take our money and do nothing for us, Bin Laden being a prime example, Afghanistan being another. They were just one of many countries that take from the United States without giving anything in return. That’s ENDING!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 19, 2018

Earlier, Pakistan's Prime Minister Imran Khan took to the virtual space to blast Trump's remark, saying that he needed to learn such historical facts that no Pakistanis were involved in the 9/11 terrorist attack, and that the country joined the US War on Terror, having suffered some 75,000 casualties.

Trump’s false assertions add insult to the injury Pak has suffered in US WoT in terms of lives lost & destabilised & economic costs. He needs to be informed abt historical facts. Pak has suffered enough fighting US's war. Now we will do what is best for our people & our interests

— Imran Khan (@ImranKhanPTI) November 19, 2018

In an interview with Fox News that aired on 18 November, Donald Trump accused Pakistan of harbouring bin Laden, saying that the terrorist had lived next to the nation's prestigious military academy.

POTUS also slammed the former special operations commander, Lt. Gen. William McRaven, for failing to capture bin Laden sooner than 2011.

Tensions between the two countries escalated after the US announced it would be cutting Pakistan's financial support by $800 million. 210/103

 

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