Pakistan desires enhancing bilateral ties with new US administration: FM

ISLAMABAD: Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi said on Wednesday that Pakistan desires enhancement of bilateral ties with the new US administration that is assuming responsibility today.

Shah Mehmood Qureshi said in a statement that the US president-elect Joe Biden has a clear perspective about the South Asian region and expressed hopes that the new administration will play a role for stopping the oppression against the people of the Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IIOJK).

He said that Islamabad and Washington had a bipartisan opinion about India, but it is welcoming that the new US administration has a clear stance about the protection of human rights.

Qureshi added that the world is pointing out gross human rights violations in the Indian illegally occupied Jammu and Kashmir.

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The foreign minister said that Pakistan and the United States (US) have the conformity of views about Afghanistan and other priorities including coronavirus pandemic and strategy to deal with the climate change issue, Radio Pakistan reported.

Democrat Joe Biden will be sworn in as the 46th president of the United States on Wednesday.

Biden, 78, will become the oldest U.S. president in history at a scaled-back ceremony in Washington that has been largely stripped of its usual pomp and circumstance, due both to the coronavirus as well as security concerns following the Jan. 6 assault on the U.S. Capitol by supporters of outgoing President Donald Trump, Reuters reported.

With only a small number of attendees present, the Democrat will take the oath of office before U.S. Chief Justice John Roberts just after noon (1700 GMT), placing his hand on an heirloom Bible that has been in the Biden family for more than a century.

His running mate, Kamala Harris, the daughter of immigrants from Jamaica and India, will become the first Black person, first woman and first Asian American to serve as vice president after she is sworn in by U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor, the court’s first Latina member.