WASHINGTON – A draft bill has been endorsed by a congressional panel in United States (US) that is aimed at blocking $450 million in aid to Pakistan with the claim that Pakistan has failed in taking satisfactory action against Afghanistan’s militant Haqqani Network.
The House Armed Services Committee approved the National Defence Authorisation Act (NDAA) for 2017 last week, which also questions Pakistan’s commitment to barring militants from using its territory for conducting terror attacks. Through an amendment to the original draft, the panel limits the amount available for reimbursement to $1.1 billion, of which $900 million would be for Pakistan.
However before the provision may be adopted, it has to go through several other channels, including the Senate and a joint session. The said amount is separate from the $742m that the US State Department is seeking for Pakistan as foreign assistance. Part of this amount is considered reimbursement of the money Pakistan spends on monitoring the Afghan border.
Congress had also withheld $350m from last year’s defence authorisation, which can now only be released after the US defence secretary certifies that Pakistan is making enough efforts to evict terrorists from North Waziristan. Since May last year, when this condition was first made part of the deal, Pakistan has completed its operations in North Waziristan with considerable successes.
US observer teams have inspected the area and have even endorsed Pakistan’s claim to have eliminated all terrorist hideouts in North Waziristan. Pakistani diplomats hope that the defence secretary would issue the required certificate by the end of June.
If the proposed amount of $450m is withheld, then a similar certificate for NDAA 2017 will be needed before June next year. The 2017 act covers the support and reimbursement funds for the period between October 1, 2016, and December 31, 2017.
The draft also requires that the defence secretary explicitly states that Pakistan is demonstrating commitment to preventing the Haqqani Network from using North Waziristan as a safe haven and is also working towards restricting the movement of militants along the border by actively coordinating with Afghanistan authorities.
The House Armed Services Committee has stepped in to overview and had said that it would continue to review the reimbursements made to Pakistan and how they were utilised in meeting key objectives of the US foreign policy in the region. It requires the secretary to notify the congressional defence committees before any reimbursement can be made to Pakistan for any logistical, military or other support.
Documented guarantees, that Pakistan is facilitating the ground lines of communications, disrupting cross-border attacks, taking demonstrable steps to support counterterrorism operations, and countering the threat of improvised explosive devices, are also needed by the secretary. The move came in the wake of Congress asking Pakistan to use its national funds to buy eight F-16s from the US.
