Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan (and army chief General Qamar Javed Bajwa

Pakistan’s allies in Washington have been trying, in the meanwhile, to catch the Biden administration’s attention and get it interested in resetting ties with the one-time ally

The United States (US) state department spokesperson Ned Price could not have chosen a better word to reflect the Joe Biden administration’s weariness with Pakistan. Asked about Islamabad’s flip-flop on sugar and cotton imports from India, Price said the US “continues” to encourage the two countries to resolve their concerns through direct dialogue. Actually, he could have simply shrugged.

Pakistan’s steadily diminishing equity with the US may have hit rock bottom with the Biden administration. “For the first time in over two decades, Pakistan is not a foreign-policy priority for a new US administration,” two former Obama administration officials acknowledged in recent, and sympathetic article, advocating a reset of ties with Pakistan. And this might be good thing to keep in the rear view as New Delhi responds to Pakistan Army chief Qamar Javed Bajwa’s call to “bury the past and move forward”.

Biden has shown no interest in engaging Pakistan. He has not spoken to Prime Minister Imran Khan yet, more than two months after taking office. And that’s despite a direct request from Islamabad. The US President has also not invited Khan to his virtual summit on climate later this month. Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Bangladesh’s Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina are among the 40 world leaders who will attend.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken has spoken with his Pakistani counterpart Shah Mahmood Qureshi, but the conversation was most unlike how first-calls tend to be. It was an uncomfortable call about the release of Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh, a man convicted of kidnapping and killing of American journalist Daniel Pearl. Some in Islamabad wonder if Sheikh’s release ordered by the Supreme Court just a week after Biden’s inauguration in January is behind the current chill. US Secretary of Defence Lloyd Austin spoke with General Bajwa on phone during his travels in the region, but he did not stop by for a visit. He went to India and then skipped over Pakistan for an unannounced visit to Afghanistan.

Pakistan’s allies in Washington have been trying, in the meanwhile, to catch the Biden administration’s attention and get it interested in resetting ties with the one-time ally. One of them called for a “rightsized” US-Pakistan relationship focused on economic and cultural interests. Another one called also for economic ties as the new focus but sought a “light government touch”, in other words, US government help.

There is no indication the Biden administration — the national security council is driving the South Asia engagement for now in the absence of senate-confirmed assistant secretaries to head the relevant bureaus at the state and defence departments — is interested in a reset. Bajwa’s peace offer, as one American observer said, could be a move to “impress” Biden, win a reprieve and get something that looks like a reset. And no more.