Pakistan must change its approach to terrorism: US

WASHINGTON: While encouraging members of the BRICS alliance to continue playing a constructive role in global stabilisation, the US reminded Pakistan that it "must change its approach" to terrorism.

At the three-day 9th BRICS Summit that concluded on Tuesday in Xiamen, China, leaders of the five-nation (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa) bloc called for an immediate end to violence in Afghanistan, Dawn news reports.

For the first time, BRICS termed militant groups allegedly based in Pakistan a regional security concern and called for their patrons to be held to account.


"We encourage the BRICS Forum to contribute constructively to global governance and stability," a US State Department spokesperson said on Wednesday when asked to comment on the BRICS declaration issued on Monday.

The US official also welcomed BRICS' condemnation of North Korea's latest nuclear test and then reminded Pakistan of the need to fight all militant groups operating in the South Asian region, including those that Washington claims are based in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA).

"As the (President Donald Trump's) administration has said, Pakistan must change its approach. We look to the Pakistani government to take decisive action against militant groups based in Pakistan that are a threat to the region," Dawn news quoted the spokesperson as saying.

The groups mentioned in the declaration included the Afghan TaliÂban, Islamic State group, Al Qaeda and its affiliates, the Haqqani network, Lashkar-e-Taiba, Jaish-e-Mohammad, TehÂreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and Hizbut Tahrir.

Some of them are based in Afghanistan and use their bases for launching attacks into Pakistan.

On December 16, 2014, TTP attacked a school in Peshawar and killed 141 people, including 132 children