ISLAMABAD, Oct. 5 (Xinhua) -- Pakistan on Thursday rejected recent remarks by senior U.S. officials that Pakistan security agencies have links with the Afghan armed groups and that there are sanctuaries of terrorists in Pakistan.
Chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff General Joseph Dunford, in his recent statement, has leveled allegations on Pakistan's intelligence agency maintaining contacts with the Afghan terrorist groups.
"We have time and again rejected these allegations. Pakistan has done enough to erase the footprint of terrorism from its soil through indiscriminate counter terrorism operations against all terrorist outfits," the Pakistan Foreign Office spokesman Nafees Zakaria said.
"Our counter-terrorism operations were without any discrimination and we have successfully erased the footprint of terrorists from our soil. There are no safe-havens in Pakistan," the spokesman said at his weekly briefing.
He said the sanctuaries people are talking about are "located in the ungoverned spaces of Afghanistan," adding that in the wake of U.S. President Donald Trump's policy review on Afghanistan and South Asia, Pakistan, at the highest level, has clearly underlined that the country should not be made a scapegoat for failures in Afghanistan.
He said Pakistan's sincerity and commitment to taking action against terrorist groups should not be doubted.
To a question about cross-border terrorism, the spokesman said Pakistan is fully committed to addressing this issue with Afghanistan through effective border management, and has also taken concrete measures in this regard, adding Pakistan has suffered due to terrorist attacks by terrorists from Afghan side.
Regarding Pakistan's Army Chief General Qamar Javed Bajwa's visit to Afghanistan over the weekend, he said the army chief held "constructive and useful engagements with both political and military leadership of Afghanistan."
"Pakistan as a policy, participates in all forums that are geared towards bringing peace and stability in Afghanistan. Pakistan has offered training and equipment in the field of counter terrorism and border management," Zakaria said.
