Asked about ‘harsh’ statements from Pakistani officials being an indication of things being tense during a press briefing, State Department’s Deputy Spokesperson Vedant Patel said that there was absolutely no such problem.

“Absolutely not. You’ve heard me say this before: Pakistan continues to be one of our most important partners in the region,” Patel said.

“There continues to be a lot of cooperation that we have with the Government of Pakistan, especially in the security space, especially in the trade sector,” he added.

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Patel added that the Pakistani finance minister had recently been in the US and had held ‘consultations’ with the State Department.

“This is a robust relationship and we’ll look to continue strengthening it,” he said.