US ties with Pakistan not at expense of ‘deep relations’ with India: Secretary of State

United States Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Saturday said that Washington’s ties with Pakistan were not at the expense of the US’ deep relations with India.

Asked if New Delhi had expressed concerns about the Donald Trump administration’s strengthening ties with Islamabad, Rubio told reporters that “they really haven’t”.

“...we know they’re concerned for obvious reasons because of the tensions that have existed between Pakistan and India historically”, he added.

“But, I think they have to understand we have to have relations with a lot of different countries,” Rubio said. “We see an opportunity to expand our strategic relationship with Pakistan, and I think we’ve made – that’s our job, is to try to figure out how many countries we can find how we can work with on things of common interest.”

New Delhi is “very mature when it comes to diplomacy and things of that nature”, the secretary of state said.

“Look, they have some relationships with countries that we don’t have relationships with,” he added. “So, it’s part of a mature, pragmatic foreign policy. I don’t think anything we’re doing with Pakistan comes at the expense of our relationship or friendship with India, which is deep, historic and important.”

On Saturday, when asked if the US’ relations with Pakistan had strengthened...

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