Republican senator Lindsey Graham on Wednesday questioned Pakistan’s reliability as a mediator in the US-Iran conflict and called on the country to diplomatically recognise Israel through the Abraham Accords.
“It has been apparent to me for quite a while that Pakistan as a mediator is more than problematic. Their animosity towards Israel is long standing. It is undeniable that Iranian military aircraft are being housed on Pakistani air bases and past rhetoric from the highest Pakistani officials against Israel is disturbing,” Graham said in a post on X. The US Senator, a close ally of President Donald Trump, was referring to an earlier report that Islamabad provided safe harbour to Iranian military aircraft that may have shielded them from US airstrikes.
Pakistan has denied the report but Graham at the time questioned the country’s trustworthiness. In a separate post, he insinuated that Pakistan’s Field Marshal Asim Munir would discuss the status of Iranian military aircraft stationed on Pakistani soil during the latter’s visit to Tehran last week.
Graham also commented on Trump’s call for Pakistan and other West Asian nations to join the Abraham Accords, which were concluded in the first Trump administration and deal with establishing diplomatic, economic and security ties between Israel and Arab nations.
Signing the accords would mean full diplomatic normalisation with Israel, which Pakistan has firmly opposed in the past. Reacting to a clip of Pakistan’s defence minister Khwaja Asif expressing reservations about the accords, Graham said that Islamabad must make its position on the matter clear.
“As to the defense minister’s comments about the Abraham Accords, saying that Pakistan would never join because they don’t trust Israel: The clip may be a year old, but I fear the sentiment is fresh. In that regard, it is imperative that Pakistan give an answer now to President Trump’s call to join the Abraham Accords,” he added.
The U.S. senator, who has represented South Carolina in the Senate since 2003, has warned of “severe repercussions for our future relationships” if countries refused to go along with signing the Abraham Accords.
While striking a sceptical tone about the present dispensation in Pakistan, Graham engaged closely with Islamabad when Imran Khan was the prime minister. The lawmaker met Khan during his 2019 visit to Washington, spoke with Pakistan’s foreign minister after India’s abrogation of Article 370, and publicly urged the Biden administration to engage with Islamabad in 2021.
