By Khushal Khan

WASHINGTON (TSAT) - The US state department strongly condemned the terrorist attack in Pakistan's southern port city of Karachi last week and said Washington ready to cooperate with Islamabad in counter terrorism.

During his daily press briefing, the state department spokesman Ned Price said that a terrorist attack anywhere is an affront to humanity everywhere, but for a terrorist attack to take place at a university, or at a religious site, or at some of the locations we’ve seen recently – that is a true affront to mankind.

“When it comes to your question, what I’ll say is that we value our bilateral relationship. We want to continue to work together in areas where we do have mutual interests with our Pakistani partners. That includes counterterrorism. That includes border security as well,” he added.

Last week, at least four people including three Chinese nationals were killed in a suicide bombing attack at Karachi University when Shari Baloch targeted a van of Chinese nationals near Confucius Institute — a Chinese language teaching center at the University.

A Baloch terrorist group, Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA) claimed responsibility for the attack and said it was the first suicide attack carried out by a female terrorist

- India religious freedom

Speaking on the US Commission on Religious Freedom recommended to include India into their blacklist for the religious freedom violations, he said USCIRF is an independent commission, It’s not a governmental entity.

“It does provide recommendations and guidance to the U.S. Government. It is something that we look at closely as we evaluate conditions of religious freedom or lack thereof around the world.”

He added that experts in the state department will take a close look at the report that USCIRF which is submitted to the department and our experts will prepare for our determinations and our findings when it comes to religious freedom around the world.

Last month, the USCIRF In its annual report urged the State Department for the third straight year to include India on the US list of “countries of particular concern” and impose targeted sanctions. 

However, the US always avoids India's human rights violations due to its close ties with New Delhi and being part of the QUAD alliance against China.