ISLAMABAD, Jan 26 (APP):Defence Minister Engineer Khurram Dastgir Khan has said that Americans are choosing to blame Pakistan for its sixteen years old failure in Afghanistan.
In an interview with the national radio and TV channel of Belgium, Defence Minister said that US has spent a trillion dollars; they have sacrificed thousands of soldiers, many more injuries and even
now, nearly 45 percent of Afghanistan is outside the government’s control.”
The minister warned, as long as the situation is unstable in Afghanistan, there will remain unrest in Pakistan, said a press release issued here on Friday.
Replying to a question on Pak-US relations the minister said: “We expect the Europeans to
convey our point of view to the Americans who are at the moment not very receptive to Pakistan’s
point of view; it is to say that again let’s keep the eyes on the prize, as the Americans say. And the
prize is a stable democratic Afghanistan.”
On the internal security situation of Pakistan, the minister said: “Well the internal security
situation is massively improved. There is no other word for it. I think we have performed a miracle.
So, the whole of Pakistan is now peaceful. We still get some terrorist incidents. But largely, the
incidents of terror are down by 80 percent from their peak in 2012”.
He said: “The murdering of 142 children in Army Public School in 2017 cleared the mind of the people of Pakistan. These were not religious people, these were not anti-American crusaders, these were not nationalist people. They were just evil people who wanted to hurt Pakistan”.
Talking about improvement in Pakistan’s economic situation Khurram Dastgir Khan was of the
view: “Pakistan has the fastest growing consumer market in the world at the moment. There is a lot of interest from international retailers, food outlets, and companies who want to tap Pakistan’s consumer market.”
He said Pakistan is finally at the threshold of utilising its potential because of its very strategic geographical location. But now finally because of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor the
investment infrastructure was coming in, we are about to exploit its potential.”
Khurram Dastgir Khan said in order to end the blame game Pakistan has begun to fence the
2600 kilometre border.
Pakistan has already fenced 250 kilometre border without anybody’s help, he added.
