Islamabad: Prime Minister Imran Khan has said that Pakistan would get attached to Middle East via Afghanistan, provided that Afghanistan attains sustainable peace.
The premier was talking to American newspaper ‘The New York Times.’
Stressing upon the need of a political solution in Afghanistan, Imran Khan said that a political solution of Afghanistan’s turmoil is impregnable, if we want to built stability and peace in Afghanistan.
“In case of Taliban getting hold of Afghanistan, we may seal our border with it.” Imran cautioned, adding that Islamabad has already assured Kabul of full-fledge cooperation for peace.
Talking about the Pak-Afghan relations, premier said that Pakistan and Afghanistan constantly share information and there exist strong bilateral relations. “Army Chief General Qamar Javed Bajwa is in continuous contacts with Afghan military leadership. Unfortunately Afghanistan wants Pakistan to do more. This is disappointing that we (Pakistan) are held responsible for not reaching out any political settlement”, Imran Khan said.
Prime Minister, while talking about Indo-Pak relations said that Pakistan may build better relations with India in future. Pakistan and India are two major global markets and I am willing for an improvement in our relations.
Imran Khan said that we want equity-based relationship with the US. The relations with US were deteriorated during our war against terrorism. “They (US) thought that Pakistan would work for them for their grants and aid, instead, Pakistan paid its own heavy price for war-on-terror in shape of 70000 casualties and a loss of 150 billion dollars.” Prime Minister maintained.
Prime Minister Imran Khan said that unfortunately governments in Pakistan were giving ‘out of the way’ favors to America, which created mistrust between the two countries. People of Pakistan have suffered a lot, while on the other hand, US was always demanding Pakistan to do more.
Talking about Afghan peace talks, the premier said that Pakistan used it influence for US-Taliban peace talks. We have cautioned both US and Taliban that force will only create chaos and civil war, and in this case Pakistan will be affected badly and would consider sealing Pak-Afghan border.
“Pakistan is already hosting three million Afghan migrants; a civil war will surely enhance this burden. We have done more than our capacity”, Pakistan’s Prime Minister maintained.
PM Imran said that good relationship between China and US will benefit the whole world. China is very close to us and they have helped us out of the way, Prime Minister Imran Khan said.