Pakistani diplomat: Slowing Afghan drawdown would be seen ‘positively’

Pakistan’s top diplomat to the U.S. on Tuesday predicted that slowing down the drawdown of American troops from neighboring Afghanistan would be received “positively” in his country, as well as Kabul.

Ambassador Jalil Abbas Jilani, Pakistan’s ambassador to the United States, said that as the U.S. has decreased the number of soldiers in Afghanistan in the last year, his nation’s army has experienced a “surge,” upping its border presence from 145,000 troops to around 170,000 today.

While the security situation Afghanistan remains “challenging,” the U.S. withdrawal has placed additional responsibilities on Pakistan’s army that is “already stretched to the limit,” he said during a Christian Science Monitor breakfast.

Afghan President Ashraf Ghani will visit Washington to meet with President Obama later this month and the administration’s plan to reduce the roughly 10,000 troops in the country by about half before the end of the year is expected to be a central topic.

Ghani has allegedly said that he does not want the U.S. to continue drawing down its presence in Afghanistan during 2015.

“His request with us is leave it flat for the rest of the year,” House Armed Services chairman Mac Thornberry (R-Texas) said last week. “He said that will give us the best chance of being able to further develop and be able to defend ourselves.”

Jillani said “any drawdown must take into the ground realities and it should contribute to peace and stability in Afghanistan and we have reason to believe things are proceeding exactly in that direction.”

He added that any decision on the withdrawal is the “sovereign” choice of the U.S. and Afghanistan “the effort should be made that not to create any space for any militant activity to increase.”