Days after US President Donald Trump threatened to cut American aid to Pakistan, the State Department placed the South Asian Islamic country on a Special Watch List for “severe violations of religious freedom” under the International Religious Freedom Act of 1998.
The move came three days after Trump, in his first tweet of the new year, accused Pakistan of providing a safe haven to terrorists despite receiving billions of dollars in aid over the years.
“The United States has foolishly given Pakistan more than 33 billion dollars in aid over the last 15 years, and they have given us nothing but lies & deceit, thinking of our leaders as fools. They give safe haven to the terrorists we hunt in Afghanistan, with little help. No more!” Trump wrote.
Rejecting Trump’s accusa-tions, Pakistan said its counter-terrorism campaign had served as a bulwark against the expa-nsion of scores of terrorist orga-nizations in Afghanistan — a fact acknowledged by US authorities at the highest level.
Pakistan’s successful counter-terrorism cooperation against Al-Qaeda had led to Pakistan suffe-ring a brutal backlash, including the killing of hundreds of its schoolchildren by terrorists based in Afghanistan, a statement by Pakistan’s powerful National Security Committee said on January 2.
Apart from Pakistan, the US Secretary of State also re-designated Myanmar, China, Eritrea, Iran, North Korea, Sudan, Saudi Arabia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan as “countries of particular concern” on Dec. 22.
On Jan. 4, the Trump admi-nistration announced it had sus-pended all security assistance to Pakistan until it proves its commitment to fight all terrorist groups operating in the region.
