Sherman is the highest-ranking career diplomat in the State Department as the Secretary of State, who is equivalent to a foreign minister in other countries, is always a political appointee. She is the highest-ranking US visitor to Pakistan under President Joe Biden and since Taliban’s victory in Kabul.
Sherman will be in India on 6 and 7 October where she will meet officials and civil society leaders and address US-India Business Council annual “ideas summit”.
“We seek a strong partnership with Pakistan on counter terrorism and we expect sustained action against all militant and terrorist groups without distinction,” Sherman told reporters.
“Both of our countries have suffered terribly from the scourge of terrorism and we look forward to cooperative efforts to eliminate all regional and global terrorist threats,” she said from Switzerland, her first stop on a trip that will also take her to India and Uzbekistan.
Pakistani Minister Imran Khan, a longtime critic of US military campaigns, has asked the world to engage Taliban and provide economic support.
Sherman praised Pakistan's calls for an inclusive government in Afghanistan. “We look to Pakistan to play a critical role in enabling that outcome,” she said.
Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi met his US counterpart Antony Blinken in New York on the sidelines of the 76th session of the UN General Assembly. Their talks focused on the current situation in Afghanistan where the Taliban ousted the pro-US Ghani government in mid-August. The takeover followed the withdrawal of US troops from the war-torn country.
The US wants Pakistan to persuade Taliban to include other factions in government, respect human rights, allow women to work and girls to attend school.
Pakistan has assured the international community that it too wants an inclusive government in Kabul and will continue urging Taliban to fulfill the promises they have made to the international community.
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