WASHINGTON (AP) — Pakistan's top diplomat is urging the Trump administration's envoy for reconciliation in neighboring Afghanistan to be more sensitive to Pakistani opinion than he has been as a private citizen.
The recent appointment of veteran U.S. diplomat Zalmay Khalilzad has raised hackles in Pakistan. Khalilzad is a former ambassador to Afghanistan. He's previously called on the U.S. to declare Pakistan a terrorist state unless it stops harboring insurgents.
Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi told a Washington think tank on Wednesday that there's been a negative reaction in the Pakistani press to the appointment because Khalilzad "has made statements in the past which have not been, to put it mildly, very friendly to Pakistan."
Qureshi says that to be seen as an "honest broker" the envoy needs to be more restrained.
