After Palestine, US now scraps aid to Pakistan

Washington: The cut off to Pakistani aid came after US decision to end all funding to the UN agency tasked with supporting Palestinian refugees. Now the US military has announced that it was cancelling $300 million in aid to Pakistan over what it calls Islamabad's failure to take action against militant groups.

After Palestine, US now scraps aid to Pakistan

US donated more than $350 million to the agency for helping Palestinian refugees in 2017.

The Palestinian aid was cancelled describing the agency as “irredeemably flawed” while the Pakistani aid was scrape off on the ground of "a lack of Pakistani decisive actions" in tackling the militant issue.

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Pentagon spokesman Lt Col Kone Faulkner on Saturday said the US military would aim to spend the money on other "urgent priorities".

"We continue to press Pakistan to indiscriminately target all terrorist groups," Col Faulkner said in a statement, adding that the $300 million aid - which had earlier been suspended - should be used elsewhere due to "a lack of Pakistani decisive actions" in tackling the issue.

The announcement comes just days before US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is due to visit Pakistan to meet the country's new Prime Minister Imran Khan.

President Donald Trump has previously accused Pakistan of deceiving the US while receiving billions of dollars.

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The US state department has also slammed Pakistan for failing to deal with terrorist networks operating on its soil, including the Haqqani network and the Afghan Taliban.

In January, the US government announced it was cutting almost all security aid to the country.

With IANS Inputs