ISLAMABAD, Sep 21 (Asia Free Press): Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi on Tuesday address the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) in New York and said that as the US mission in Afghanistan was over, Pakistan wanted to take its bilateral ties beyond counter terrorism and Afghanistan, while keeping them both among the priorities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cNow that the U.S. military mission in Afghanistan is over, we want to take our relationship beyond counterterrorism and Afghanistan\u2014which, of course, would remain priorities\u2026 In short, we have all the ingredients in place to build a more substantive and broad based relationship that is anchored in trade, investment, and people-to-people linkages,\u201d the foreign minister said in a conversation at Council on Foreign Relations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
According to Ministry of Foreign Affairs press statement, the Foreign Minister, who is currently in New York to attend the UN General Assembly session, said for Pakistan, the US remained an important partner and It was the first physical session at the CFR after a hiatus of 18 months and Foreign Minister Qureshi was the first guest invited to the first such event held both physically and virtually.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Qureshi said the US is still Pakistan\u2019s largest export market and a major source of foreign remittances.
He said the talented young Pakistanis continue to gravitate towards American college campuses and Silicon Valley incubators. Finally, we have a large and politically engaged Pakistani American community that is a bridge between our two countries, he added.
He said Pak-US engagement had often been narrowly framed, dictated either by short-term security interests or the imperative to deal with a common challenge.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe want to break out of this pattern,\u201d he remarked.
Qureshi said after September 11 terrorist attacks, Pakistan and the US came together to decimate Al Qaeda\u2019s core leadership and architecture. The bilateral cooperation produced results, leading President Biden to conclude earlier this year that the United States had achieved its core objective in Afghanistan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Foreign Minister told the gathering that as Pakistan shifted its focus towards \u201cgeo-economics,\u201d the country wanted to leverage its connectivity infrastructure\u2014including the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor\u2014to enhance regional trade and economic integration. Pakistan saw the United States as an important partner in this regard, Qureshi added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Foreign Minister said Pakistan being an over 220 million people market, Pakistan\u2019s young but exciting start-up tech culture showcased its untapped investment potential. With the government\u2019s climate-friendly energy policies, there are now tremendous opportunities for US companies that specialize in renewable and clean energy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Ultimately, an economically strong Pakistan can be an anchor of stability in a region that has suffered through 40 years of war in Afghanistan, the Minister remarked.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
ISLAMABAD, Sep 21 (Asia Free Press): Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi on Tuesday address the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) in New York and said that as the US mission in Afghanistan was over, Pakistan wanted to take its bilateral ties beyond counter terrorism and Afghanistan, while keeping them both among the priorities. \u201cNow that […]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":741,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[342],"tags":[58,315,316,155,319,317,65,318,74],"class_list":["post-739","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics","tag-afghanistan","tag-cfr","tag-council","tag-foreign","tag-foreign-minister-shah-mahmood-qureshi","tag-on","tag-pakistan","tag-relations","tag-us"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en_gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/739"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en_gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en_gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en_gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en_gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=739"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en_gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/739\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en_gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/741"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en_gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=739"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en_gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=739"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en_gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=739"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}