I felt like slapping Trump, says PTI's Asad Umar

Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) leader Asad Umar on Wednesday said that he felt like “slapping” the United States’ president Donald Trump during his Monday speech in which he accused Pakistan of sheltering terrorists despite getting “billions and billions of dollars”.

“It is not the language diplomats or parliamentarians can use but I am just saying what I personally felt. When he was saying ‘we have been paying Pakistan billions and billions of dollars’ I felt like slapping him,” Asad Umar told ARY News’ anchor Arshad Sharif.

The PTI leader maintained that it saddened him to see where the rulers brought this state, a country founded as a realization of Allama Iqbal’s dream.

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“Iqbal rightly said when you bow before foreign powers, neither your soul nor your body remains yours,” he said.

Asad expressed remorse over all the cabinet ministers’ active engagement in saving the ruling family for the last 15 months.

He said it was the first time a US president openly threatened Pakistan, while in the past all they did was to put pressure in in-camera meetings.

“He (Trump) talked of taking action inside Pakistan by crossing the border. He threatened to put sanctions on Pakistan and he expressed his desire to control the region through India,” he said.

The PTI leader said amid these big threats, the whole cabinet was engaged in saving the former prime minister.

During his presidential address to the US nation on August 22, Donald Trump slammed Pakistan for “sheltering terrorists,” despite being a key US ally receiving billions of dollars.

“Pakistan has also sheltered the same organizations that try every single day to kill our people. We have been paying Pakistan billions and billions of dollars at the same time they are housing the very terrorists that we are fighting. But that will have to change, and that will change immediately. No partnership can survive a country’s harboring of militants and terrorists who target US service-members and officials.

Pakistan’s National Security Committee has outrightly rejected the specific allegations and insinuation made by President Trump against Pakistan.

The meeting of National Security Committee was held in Islamabad on Thursday with Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi in the chair to discuss the Trump Administration’s South Asia Strategy.

It was observed that to scapegoat Pakistan will not help in stabilizing Afghanistan. In fact, being its immediate neighbor, Pakistan has an abiding interest in peace and stability in Afghanistan.

The committee observed that Pakistan had to manage the blowback of a protracted conflict in Afghanistan that resulted in deluge of refugees, flow of drugs and arms and more recently in the shape of terrorist safe havens in eastern Afghanistan from where anti-Pakistan terrorist groups continue to operate and launch attacks inside Pakistan.