The US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson on Wednesday urged NATO to “further leverage the action plan to strengthen the allies' resilience against terrorist attacks.

“Yesterday we discussed how to further leverage the action plan to strengthen the allies' resilience against terrorist attacks and, in particular, to build upon NATO's already long-standing commitments in Iraq and Afghanistan, increase their cooperation as the President (Donald Trump) has announced his new South Asia strategy,” Tillerson said at NATO’s Foreign Minister’s Meeting in Brussels. “We appreciate NATO members' commitments to the United States effort to defeat ISIS (Daesh) globally, as well as our other counterterrorism efforts.”

He also said that earlier Wednesday morning they had a productive discussion with Georgian Foreign Minister Janelidze. Georgia is a large contributor to our joint efforts in Afghanistan.

“In fact, they are the largest per capita of any contributing nation, and we strongly support Georgia's aspirations to become a NATO member,” he said.

In the meantime, the NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg has said that the partnership between the alliance and Afghanistan is very strong and that the NATO forces are working shoulder to shoulder with the Afghan security forces for peace in the country.

“We will review the security situation and the country's ongoing reforms which are bringing it closer to NATO. Our partnership is outstanding, our forces serve side by side in Afghanistan,” said Stoltenberg.

The US ambassador to NATO has said that Pakistan must give assurance to the US that it is not cooperating and providing financial assistance to the Taliban and the Haqqani network.

“I think it is very important that Pakistan hear the message from Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, who is there today, and from all of us in the administration that we need Pakistan's cooperation. And we can do so much more as a partner with Pakistan if they will assure that they are not giving aid and financial help to the Haqqani or the Taliban network or any other terrorist network,” said US ambassador to NATO Kay Bailey Hutchison.

Diplomatic pressure on Pakistan has increased following US president Donald Trump’s new war strategy involving Afghanistan and South Asia.