Islamabad: Pakistan army chief Field Marshal Asim Munir will likely visit the United States (US) later this week to attend the farewell of Central Command (CENTCOM) Commander General Michael E Kurilla, according to Pakistani media reports. This will be Munir’s second visit to the US following the recent military conflict between India and Pakistan.
The farewell of Kurilla will likely be held at the CENTCOM headquarters in Florida’s Tampa.
General Kurilla, commander of US CENTCOM, has had a soft corner for Pakistan and has often hailed Islamabad for its role in countering terrorism, particularly against Islamic State – Khorasan Province (ISIS-K). Kurillia, however, has argued that the US needs to have a good relationship with both India and Pakistan.
“I don’t believe it’s a binary switch that we can’t have one with Pakistan if we have one with India,” he said at an event in June.
Munir had last visited the US in June, weeks after India conducted Operation Sindoor, destroying multiple terror launchpads and infrastructure in Pakistan, in response to the deadly terror attack in Jammu and Kashmir’s Pahalgam that had claimed 26 lives. This was the first time that a sitting US President welcomed a Pakistani military official without the presence of any leader from the civilian government.
During his visit, Munir also met US President Donald Trump at the White House. Trump and Munir held talks over multiple issues, with the latter proposing that the US President should be awarded a Nobel Prize for “preventing a nuclear war” between India and Pakistan, the White House had said in a statement.
Later, Trump also lauded Munir for his role in ending the war between India and Pakistan. “Two very smart people decided not to keep going with that war; that could have been a nuclear war,” the US President had said.
It must be noted that Trump, on multiple occasions, has tried to take credit for brokering a deal between India and Pakistan. However, India has repeatedly rejected his claims and said that no third party was involved in the mediation between the two nations.
