US cuts off $300 million aid to Pakistan, cites lack of strong action on terrorism as reason

Washington: The Pentagon has sought Congressional determination to reprogramme USD 300 million of its Coalition Support Fund (CSF) for Pakistan because of the latter's "lack of" decisive actions in support of the South Asia Strategy.

"Due to a lack of Pakistani decisive actions in support of the South Asia Strategy, the remaining USD 300 million (actually USD 323.6 million to include non-Pakistan funds) was reprogrammed by DoD in the June/July 2018 time frame for other urgent priorities before the funds expire on September 30, 2018," Pentagon Spokesman Kon Faulkner said.

With this, the Department of Defence (DoD) has reprogrammed USD 800 million CSF destined for Pakistan. 

This is because US Defence Secretary Jim Mattis has refused to give the necessary certification to the Congress that Pakistan has taken strong steps against terrorist groups like the Haqqani network and Lashkar-e-Taiba. "This is not a new decision or a new announcement," Faulkner said in response to a question. 

"In 2018, the DoD Appropriations Act, published on March 23, 2018, you can find the verbiage detailing USD 500 million was rescinded by Congress upon the 2018 DoD Appropriations Act's passage (page 161), which is all public," he said.

"We continue to press Pakistan to indiscriminately target all terrorist groups, including the Haqqani Network and LET in the region," Faulkner said.

The Department of Defence is awaiting congressional determination on whether this reprogramming request will be approved or denied.

Pentagon will have a congressional response before September 30, to allow it to implement the reprogramming actions, he said.