Friends or Foes: An Editorial Discourse on Pak-US Relations

Abstract

Historically, the relations between Pakistan and United States have hardly converged. Pakistan closely cooperated with US on the issues related to stabilization of peace, counter terrorism and on the issues concerning the presence of Osama bin Laden and Haqqani Network in Pakistan. Haqqani Network has been a source of diplomatic tension between United States and Pakistan relations. Therefore, the current study intends to examine that how the editorials of two English newspapers of Pakistani i.e., Dawn and The News covered Pak-US relations during the coverage of Haqqani Network by using the method of critical discourse analysis. The findings of the study revealed that the portrayal of Pak-US relations in both the newspapers is sympathetic towards Pakistan and at times contradictory. Moreover, both the newspapers have covered maximum themes and discourses which emphasized on negotiations between the three parties, trust deficit, and US confused strategy.