Web Desk (LTN NEWS): Chief of the Army Staff General Qamar Javed Bajwa went to the United States for five days. On Wednesday evening, he went back home. The international media thinks this was part of an effort to improve relations between the US and Pakistan.
While the international media focused on things like relations between Pakistan and the US, India, and Pakistan, and Pakistan and China, the Pakistani press was more interested in how the visit might affect the country’s politics.
The timing of the visit was also a big deal. Many people wanted to know why the army chief came to Washington at the end of his job.
Tamanna Salikuddin, who worked for the State Department and the US National Security Council for 12 years before becoming the head of the South Asian program at the US Institute of Peace, disagrees with the timing rumors.
“People in Pakistan are looking for signs, for ways to connect the dots, but there are none,” she told.
“I think this visit has been planned for a long time, and it has taken a long time to get here. It was planned and re-planned several times.”
She said about the rumors in the Pakistani media, “I don’t think it has anything to do with when he’s going to retire.”
She said that no one in the US administration would say “yes” or “no” to extending his term of office. Not even close. People in Pakistan buy a lot of conspiracy theories, but they are so far from the truth.
Michael Kugelman of the Wilson Center in Washington said that General Bajwa came “during what will likely be the last few weeks of his final term as Pakistan’s army chief,” but he didn’t say why.
“The trip can be seen as an effort not only to improve relations between the US and Pakistan but also to improve his own legacy as he gets ready to retire,” he said.
Marvin Weinbaum of the Middle East Institute in Washington, DC, said he didn’t like how everything in Pakistan was linked to politics.
“Confrontational politics go on as usual, instead of the unity that is needed to deal with Pakistan’s humanitarian and economic crises,” he wrote.
In its report on the visit, Al Jazeera said that efforts to improve relations began in July and that, since then, several senior US officials and members of Congress have visited the country after the floods. So far, the US has given $66 million in aid.
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