During a US congressional hearing on Afghanistan, Republican Senator Marco Rubio slammed Pakistan for supporting Taliban, hardliners in Afghanistan, and bemoaned the US's own role in the fall of Kabul. "Multiple US administrations were guilty of ignoring Pakistan's role in helping the Taliban to regroup," he said. "India—I know that there was an announcement today there will be a meeting of the Quad fairly soon—which is a good development. If you are India, you are looking at this and saying, the United States allowed Pakistan to unravel their standing," he said.
"They [Indians] have to be looking at this and saying if the United States could have, you know, a third-rate power like Pakistan unravel its aims, what chance do they have of confronting China? So, I think this leaves us in a terrible situation," Rubio said.
Developments in Afghanistan, the COVID pandemic and ways to expand cooperation for a free, open and inclusive Indo-Pacific are set to be the central focus of the first in-person summit of the Quad in Washington next week that will be attended by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and other leaders of the four-nation grouping. In his first visit to the US since President Joe Biden took office, the prime minister will participate in the summit on September 24 in Washington and address the 76th session of the UN General Assembly in New York the next day.
US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken announced in a congressional testimony that the country will reevaluate its relation wiith Pakistan. Blinken told the House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee that Pakistan has a "multiplicity of interests some that are in conflict with ours." "It is one that is involved hedging its bets constantly about the future of Afghanistan, it's one that's involved harboring members of the Taliban," he said, reported news agency Reuters. Earlier, US lawmakers—across party lines—had expressed outrage over Pakistan's "duplicitous" part in Afghanistan post 9/11 and demanded that Washington reassess its relationship with Islamabad.
