Unwilling to certify that Pakistan was doing everything it can to fight terrorism, the Obama administration asked the US Congress to waive a provision to release $532 million in civilian aid to that country.
The aid, given under Kerry-Lugar-Berman Act, was announced on December 29 in Islamabad by US ambassador to Pakistan Richard Olson at a meeting with finance minister Ishaq Dar. Pakistan is supposed to get $1.5 billion annually under this Act over five years, starting 2009.
India reacted sharply on Monday to reports that the 2014 assistance package was given after secretary of state John Kerry told Congress that Pakistan was doing it all it can to combat terrorism.
"India does not believe that Pakistan is showing sustained commitment or making significant effort or ceasing support or dismantling bases of operations of the Laskhar-e-Taiba, Jaish-e-Muhammad, the Haqqani network and quite possibly the al Qaeda," said external affairs ministry spokesperson Syed Akbaruddin.
But secretary Kerry or the administration has not, in fact, given any such certification, according to multiple US sources. The state department had not responded to a request for comments till the filing of this report.
Congressional sources said the state department had sought a "waiver" around July, which should not be confused for certification.
The waiver, said a source, indicated, in fact, the administration was not in a position to provide a certificate that Pakistan was indeed doing all that it is required to do on terrorism.
Under the Act, any aid to Pakistan - civilian or non-civilian (military, security related) is conditional upon the administration certifying that Pakistan was "cooperating with the United States in counterterrorism efforts against the Haqqani network, the Quetta Shura Taliban, Lashkar-e-Tayyiba, Jaish-e-Mohammed, al-Qaeda, and other domestic and foreign terrorist organisations, including taking steps to end support for such groups and prevent them from basing and operating in Pakistan and carrying out cross border attacks into neighboring countries". And there are other conditions such as the prevention of proliferation of nuclear weapons.
But to give the administration flexibility the law allowed it to seek waiver of those conditions in national security interests, only for security-related aid in the original law, extended to cover all kinds of assistance in 2012.
"Only once did the admin issue a blanket certification - in mid-2012", said a congressional source, adding, "Since then, aid flows (to Pakistan) have continued only because the admin has exercised the national security waiver authority included in legislation."
The Kerry-Lugar-Berman Act (John Kerry was then a senator) had originally conditioned security aid only. But since 2012, all financial assistance to Pakistan has been made contingent on state department certification.
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