The Pakistan Foreign Ministry on Monday summoned a senior American diplomat to lodge a formal protest against last week's US-India joint statement that urged Islamabad to take action against terrorist organizations like the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT)*, Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM)*, etc.
"Pakistan's concerns and disappointment at the unwarranted, one-sided and misleading references to it in the joint statement were conveyed to the US side," The Pakistan Foreign Ministry said.
The demarche to Andrew Schofer, the deputy chief of the US mission in Pakistan, came after the US-India joint statement issued by the White House following talks between Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and American President Joe Biden took Islamabad to task over its dealings with Islamic militant organizations.
"President Biden and Prime Minister Modi reiterated the call for concerted action against all UN-listed terrorist groups including Al-Qa'ida, ISIS/Daesh*, Lashkar e-Tayyiba (LeT), Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM), and Hizb-ul-Mujahideen*," the US-India joint statement read.
"They strongly condemned cross-border terrorism, the use of terrorist proxies and called on Pakistan to take immediate action to ensure that no territory under its control is used for launching terrorist attacks," it noted.
This isn't the first time Islamabad has reacted strongly to the Washington-New Delhi joint statement.
Last Friday, Pakistan Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto Zardari shared his views on the issue.
He stated that Pakistan should not feel insecure due to India's growing ties with the United States before asking the two countries not to make terrorism "controversial".
"I don't believe there is any reason for Pakistan to be insecure about its relationship with the world or its bilateral partnership with America as a result of increasingly close cooperation between the US and India," Bilawal noted.
"We believe that terrorism is such an issue that big powers should not make it controversial. They shouldn't make it a victim of geopolitics. If we have to face terrorism properly then we will do it ourselves in our country."
India's accusation of giving havens to militant groups
For years, Delhi has accused Islamabad of giving safe havens to anti-India militant groups that operate in Pakistan.
Indian security agencies even found evidence against members of the proscribed LeT terrorist syndicate in the deadly Mumbai terror attacks in 2008 that killed 166 and injured over 300.
While Pakistan has never publicly acknowledged India's viewpoint on the matter, New Delhi has taken some tough measures against Islamabad in recent years.
In 2016, the Indian Army carried out surgical strikes against terrorist hideouts across the border. Three years later, in 2019, the Indian Air Force (IAF) conducted air strikes against a terror facility in Balakot following a suicide attack that killed 40 paramilitary personnel in Jammu and Kashmir.
*terror organizations banned in Russia, India and other states