The Trump administration has approved a resumption of Pakistan's participation in a coveted US military training and educational program more than a year after it was suspended, the State Department said on Thursday, SIA reports referring to Reuters.
The decision to resume Islamabad's participation in the International Military Education and Training Program, or IMET - for more than a decade a pillar of US-Pakistani military ties - underscores warming relations that have followed meetings this year between US President Donald Trump and Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan.
Washington also has credited Islamabad with helping to facilitate negotiations on a US troop withdrawal from Afghanistan. The talks recently resumed between the United States and the Taliban, who U.S. officials say receive sanctuary and other aid from the Pakistan's military-led intelligence agency. Pakistan denies the charge.
The State Department administers IMET. It was a small facet of US security aid programs for Pakistan worth some $2 billion that remain suspended on orders that Trump abruptly issued in January 2018 to compel the nuclear-armed South Asian nation to crackdown on militants. Trump's decision, announced in a tweet, blindsided US officials.
Pakistan's suspension from the program in August 2018 prompted the cancellation of 66 slots set aside that year for Pakistani military officers in one of the first known impacts of Trump's decision to halt security assistance.
The US military traditionally has sought to shield such educational programs from political tensions, arguing that the ties built by bringing foreign military officers to the United States pay long-term dividends.
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