"Pakistan has an important role to play in helping stabilize Afghanistan", US

The US believe that Pakistan can certainly help to facilitate talks and to take actions that will put pressure on and encourage the Taliban to move forward towards a politically negotiated settlement.

Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary Alice Wells while giving the background briefing in Washington DC, said, "Pakistan has a very important role to play in a peace process. And our engagement with Pakistan is on how we can work together, on how we can address Pakistan’s legitimate concerns and Afghanistan’s stability through a negotiated process as well. 

She said that Pakistan has expressed its concerns over a number of issues. "Obviously, as Pakistani officials have underscored, they see a variety of issues, whether it’s border management or refugees or terrorism that emanates from ungoverned space in Afghanistan, as important issues, and we would agree that all of these need to be resolved during the course of a reconciliation process."

Ms Wells said "We believe that the intensified efforts under the South Asia strategy to put military pressure on the Taliban are important, that these military efforts help shape the conditions for talks and help to underscore that there is no military victory for the Taliban, that ultimately their legitimate grievances will have to be addressed at a negotiating table. We’d like to see them come to this table sooner rather than later."

Replying to a question about legitimate concerns of Pakistan, Ms Wells elaborated that they have concerns over border management; over TT, the Tehrik-i-Taliban; Pakistan’s presence in ungoverned space in Afghanistan; refugee concerns. 

"The Afghanistan-Pakistan relationship is quite important. We are supportive of the efforts to improve the bilateral relationship. The two countries have exchanged visits over the last several months to establish a framework agreement, to enhance the bilateral relationship. We support that and think it’s important."

To a question if you have seen any change in Pakistan’s behavior as it relates to Afghanistan since the move of the U.S. to freeze aid, Ms Wells replied in negative. 

"We’ve not seen decisive and sustained changes yet in Pakistan’s behavior, but certainly we are continuing to engage with Pakistan over areas where we think they can play a helpful role in changing the calculus of the Taliban."

However, she reiterated the importance of Pakistan's role saying, "We’re certainly not walking away from Pakistan. There will be very intensive dialogue through both our military and our civilian channels to discuss how we can work together. I mean, Pakistan has an important role to play in helping to stabilize Afghanistan."