Pakistan Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi told Bloomberg News on Saturday that there has to be a political settlement in Afghanistan and that US President Donald Trump’s new war strategy will fail.

“From day one we have been saying very clearly the military strategy in Afghanistan has not worked and it will not work, there has to be a political settlement,” Abbasi said.
 
“We do not intend to allow anybody to fight Afghanistan's battle on Pakistan's soil," Abbasi added.
 
Abbasi was also adamant that Pakistan was not providing safe havens to insurgents. “Pakistan doesn’t harbor terrorists,” he said.

Last week Trump announced his new war strategy in Afghanistan and said the US could no longer stay silent about Pakistan’s involvement in providing safe havens to terrorists.

But Trump’s decision to intensify US involvement in Afghanistan was met with frustration in Pakistan. However, Afghan officials widely welcomed the new war plan and see it as a step in the right direction.

Meanwhile, US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson told Fox News on Sunday night that the new strategy was intended to pressurize the Taliban into negotiating with the Afghan government by "sending a message to the Taliban that we are not going anywhere."
 
"I think the president's been clear that this is a dramatic shift in terms of the military strategy," Tillerson said.
 
According to Tillerson the US move would be "dictated by conditions on the ground, informed by battlefield commanders."
 
"The president was clear that he's not setting any arbitrary timelines," Tillerson said.

But Pakistani military officials have said that the new war strategy is not something new.

These officials claimed that Pakistan is not providing safe havens to terrorists and implied that Trump needs to provide evidence to this effect.