Pakistan’s military chief is said to have asked the US for assistance in securing the early disbursement of an International Monetary Fund loan, as the high cost of energy imports pushes the cash-strapped South Asian nation to the brink of a payment crisis.
General Qamar Javed Bajwa called Deputy US Secretary of State Wendy Sherman earlier this week and raised the issue, according to government sources who spoke to VOA late Friday on condition of anonymity.
Pakistan reached a staff-level agreement with the IMF last week to resurrect a multibillion-dollar bailout package. The transaction, however, is subject to approval by the lender’s board, which is scheduled to meet in late August. Islamabad is expected to receive approximately $4.2 billion from the loan programme, with an initial tranche of approximately $1.2 billion.
Asim Iftikhar Ahmad, a spokesperson for the Foreign Ministry, confirmed the phone call between Bajwa and Sherman but did not provide further details.
“Well, I understand a conversation has occurred, but at this point, I have no direct knowledge of the content of that conversation,” Ahmad said at a weekly news conference in Islamabad.
A State Department spokesperson in Washington declined to confirm whether the conversion had occurred.
“US officials meet with Pakistani officials on a regular basis to discuss a variety of issues.” “We don’t comment on the specifics of private diplomatic conversations as is standard practise,” the spokesperson told VOA.
Nikkei Asia broke the news of the Bajwa-Sherman meeting on Friday, reporting that the Pakistani military chief asked the White House and Treasury Department to use their influence to expedite the loan’s release. The United States is the IMF’s largest shareholder.
When asked if the two officials had discussed the IMF loan disbursement, sources in Islamabad replied, “Yes.” However, the outcome of Bajwa’s appeal was not immediately known.
Critics blamed the loan’s delay on Pakistan’s track record of failing to follow through on commitments to implement critical economic reforms.
Bajwa also spoke by phone late Friday with General Michael Erik Kurilla, the commander of the US. CENTCOM.
In a statement, the army’s media wing quoted its chief as saying to Kurilla that Pakistan “values its relations with (the) US, and we earnestly look forward to strengthening mutually beneficial multi-domain relations based on common interests.”
According to the statement, the US commander pledged to “play his role for further improvement in cooperation with Pakistan at all levels.”
The approval of the IMF programme is critical for Pakistan’s access to other sources of funding, such as the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank.
