China not U.S. the driving force behind Saeed's house arrest: Pak media

Islamabad [Pakistan]: Pakistan media has speculated that the house arrest of Jamaat-ud Dawa (JuD) chief Hafiz Saeed was consequent to the warning issued by the United States.

A media report said that American officials warned Pakistan to rein in Saeed or risk sanctions.

Saeed in a video released shortly after his detention claimed that Pakistan was obliged to act because of U.S. President Donald Trump's warm relationship with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

However, an article published in The Dawn speculated that if any external pressure compelled Pakistan to place Saeed under house arrest then it's more likely to have come from Beijing than Washington.

The



article said that Trump has been in office for less than two weeks and beyond his rapid-fire issuance of executive orders, his presidency appears frenzied and disorganised-not to mention hamstrung by numerous unfilled senior diplomatic and national security posts. And with this, the Trump administration has too much on its plate to be focusing laser-like on Pakistan.

The article said that in a telling yet underreported development several weeks ago, China's former consul general in Kolkata published a blog post calling on Beijing to rethink its default policy of blocking Indian attempts to have Jaish-e-Mohammed leader Masood Azhar sanctioned by the United Nations.