US Secretary of State Marco Rubio has made it clear that the purpose of Washington’s growing strategic relations with Pakistan is not to sideline India. He said relations with Islamabad would not weaken America’s “deep, historic and important” partnership with New Delhi.
The US Secretary of State, while addressing the press on his way to Doha, Qatar on Saturday, said that New Delhi understands the need to engage with many countries in a mature diplomatic framework.
“I don’t think anything we’re doing with Pakistan is at the expense of our relationship or friendship with India, which is deep, historic and important,” Rubio told reporters. He was asked about India’s apprehensions over the recent uptick in US-Pakistan relations.
Acknowledging India’s concerns, the top US diplomat said, “We know they are concerned for obvious reasons, because historically there has been tension between Pakistan and India.”
However, he stressed the broader imperative of global engagement and said Washington sees an opportunity to expand its “strategic relationship” with Pakistan and aims to work with the countries on matters of common interest.
Rubio said, “We have to build relationships with many different countries. We see an opportunity to enhance our strategic relationship with Pakistan, and our job is to figure out how many countries we can engage and how to work with them on issues of common interest.”
He also praised India’s diplomatic maturity and said that “Indians are very mature in terms of diplomacy and things of that nature. They have relations with some countries with which we don’t have relations. It’s part of a mature, pragmatic foreign policy.”
Rubio’s comments come at a time when the Trump administration is rapidly expanding its ties with Pakistan, which has reportedly caused concern in New Delhi.
Following India’s Operation Sindoor in May, which targeted nine terror camps in Pakistan and Pakistan-occupied Jammu and Kashmir (PoJK), which was carried out in response to the Pakistan-sponsored terror attack in Pahalgam, Jammu and Kashmir on April 22, in which 26 people were killed in the name of religion, the two countries launched a full-scale military operation after Pakistan’s Director General of Military Operations (DGMO) called on his Indian counterpart to end hostilities. Had agreed to stop military action.
Although US President Donald Trump has repeatedly taken credit for helping ease tensions between the two nuclear nations, India has categorically denied the claim.
Meanwhile, Pakistan had welcomed Trump’s claims, even nominating him for the Nobel Peace Prize.
Trade tensions have also come to the fore, with the US imposing 50 per cent tariffs on Indian exports, of which 25 per cent is due to India’s purchases of Russian oil, which Washington claims fuels Moscow’s war efforts in Ukraine, compared to 19 per cent for Pakistan, and it has also signed agreements with Islamabad on mineral mining and oil exploration.