Our prize is stable democratic Afghanistan, says defence minister

ISLAMABAD: Defence Minister Khurram Dastgir Khan has sought Europe’s help to make the United States understand Pakistan’s point of view on Afghanistan.

“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,” he said in response to a question on Pak-US ties.

This he said while talking to the national radio and TV channel of Belgium, VRT: Flemish Radio and TV. The interview was conducted by senior journalist of VRT Steven Victor Decraene during visit of the minister to Belgium from 22nd to 25th of January as the head of a four-member Parliamentary delegation.

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The defence minister said, “A lot of blame game has come to Pakistan. It is one of the reasons why we have now begun to fence the border. And it is very interesting: now that we say okay you blame us that we send people across or that some people are crossing over, we will fence the whole 2600 kilometres. But once we have begun to fence, we have done almost well 250 kilometres already, no-one is helping us.”

He said the Americans were choosing to blame Pakistan for their sixteen year old failure in Afghanistan. They had spent a trillion dollars; they had sacrificed thousands of soldiers, many more injuries. And even now, nearly 45% of Afghanistan was outside the government’s control.

The minister said as long as the situation was unstable in Afghanistan, there will remain unrest in Pakistan.

On the internal security situation of Pakistan he said, “Well the internal security situation has massively improved. There is no other word for it. I think we have performed a near miracle. So, the whole of Pakistan is now peaceful.”

He said though some terrorist incidents were still happening, but largely, the incidents of terror were down by 80% from their peak in 2012.

Citing the incident of massacre of 142 children in Army Public School in 2017, he said those were neither religious people, nor anti-American crusaders, nor nationalist people. They were just evil people who wanted to hurt Pakistan.

Read More: Reliance on just military force in Afghanistan needs reality check: Pakistan

Talking about improvement in Pakistan’s economic situation Khurram Dastgir Khan said: “Pakistan is 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 was finally at the threshold of utilising its potential because of its very strategic geographical location.

“It is something that has given us more trouble in our history. But now finally because of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor and the investment that is coming in, that we are about to exploit its potential,” he said.