‘US wants to help Pakistan solve its challenges’

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Ambassador Marc Grossman has said that the US wants to help Pakistan solve its own challenges. While addressing a farewell reception hosted by Pakistan s Ambassador Sherry Rehman, in his honour, at her residence Thursday night, he said “I am sure that the Pakistanis will solve their own challenges in their own way. And the United States of America is proud to support that effort”. He said that the US was willing to establish a broad-based relationship with Pakistani people. “Our attempt to have a relationship with Pakistan is based on people-to-people contact, on business, on Americans and Pakistanis getting together is an extremely important one”, he assured. “When I think about Pakistan and Pakistanis, I think about resilience, I think about a tough people who are very resilient and know very much what they want and want to live in a society of tolerance, and pluralism and democracy, and a society where they can make choices about their own lives”, he remarked. Ambassador Grossman recalled his first posting as a young diplomat in Islamabad from 1977 to 1979 with fondness ad said that the friendships he made then had lasted a lifetime. “When I consider those years in Pakistan, the walks in Margalla hills, the time in Swat, Kaghan, Karachi, Peshawar and Landi Kotal, these were very important parts of my upbringing as a diplomat”, he said while also displaying his limited mastery of Urdu language. He said that his last assignment as the US special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan had an element of destiny to it. “When Secretary Clinton called me at home two years ago and asked if I would take that responsibility, it kind of completes a circle. There is a certain kismet to this – having started in Pakistan – to come back to Pakistan and Afghanistan”, he maintained. He also paid tributes to Ambassador Sherry Rehman and said that they had “a great relationship to try to reset Pakistan and America ties”. He also appreciated the role played by Ambassador Rehman in the Pakistani society for promoting tolerance, pluralism, and for promoting the rights of women. Thanking her for hosting the reception, he said that “one of the things rightly said about Pakistan is that Pakistanis are known for their legendary hospitality”. He also took the opportunity to thank the people in the US and in Islamabad with whom he worked very closely, including the Pakistani Diaspora in the US. Earlier, in her remarks, Ambassador Sherry Rehman said that Ambassador Grossman has had to deal with an unprecedented crisis in the Pak-US relations. “This bilateral relationship was in a mode of recurring crisis when I came a year ago and weighed down with baggage from 2011. He was quick to agree that the task ahead was challenging but he also agreed that we could navigate it to a zone of steady progress and stability, instead of the cycles of highs and lows. If there is an air of hope and positivity about this critical relationship, a good part of the credit goes to Ambassador Grossman”, she appreciated. Commenting on the Pak-US relationship, she said that both countries were “engaging and hoping that they engage as democracies, sharing not only tangibles of geopolitics that we always do, but the economic and commercial interactions that are so critical to shared values”. “When we say that the future success of core foreign policy agendas are pivoted as much, or more, on investing in societies and people as they are on engaging with states”, she added. “Our task together must be to look to enhancing and broadening our bilateral relationship by creating opportunities for trade and business cooperation, building stronger ties through creative public communication, student exchanges, people-to-people exchanges and by fostering a deeper understanding of the multiple transitions, at least what our society is going through right now”, she said while outlining areas of shared interest. Ambassador Grossman, she said, had shared this vision of relationship as broad-based as well as building on an economic partnership and worked very hard to make it happen. “The five working groups in fact will complete their joint deliberations by the middle of this month. The constant strategic interface on grasping opportunities for a strong and secure Afghanistan and Pakistan, all took a lot of travelling between offices, countries and even continents”, she pointed out. Later, she also presented a Pakistan Embassy memento to Ambassador Grossman as a recognition of his services. Director National Intelligence, James Clapper, Afghan Ambassador, Eklil Hakimi, State Dept officials and other dignitaries also attended. Marc Grossman will spend December 14, 2012 as his last day in office. Deputy special representative, David Pearce, will succeed him.