ISLAMABAD: Expressing its deep disappointment over the recent statements bythe American leadership, Pakistan on Tuesday reaffirmed that its peopleheld dear their national pride and were capable of defending their country.
This resolve came during the 17th meeting of the National SecurityCommittee chaired by Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi here to review theemerging strategic situation in the region and beyond.
Khawaja Muhammad Asif, Minister for Foreign Affairs, Prof Ahsan Iqbal,Minister for Interior, Khurram Dastgir, Minister for Defence, GeneralZubair Mehmood Hayat, Chairman Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee, GeneralQamar Javed Bajwa, Chief of the Army Staff, Admiral Zafar Mahmood Abbasi,Chief of the Naval Staff, Air Chief Marshall Sohail Aman, Chief of the AirStaff, Miftah Ismail, Advisor to the Prime Minister on Finance, Revenue andEconomic Affairs, Lt. General ® Nasser Khan Janjua, National SecurityAdvisor, Aizaz Ahmad Chaudhry, Pakistan’s Ambassador to the US, and seniorcivil and military officials attended the meeting.
According to a press release issued by the PM’s Media Wing after the NSCmeeting, the Committee noted its deep disappointment with some of therecent statements articulated by the American leadership.
“The Committee reaffirmed that Pakistanis are a people who hold dear theirnational pride, who are capable of defending their country, and who havedemonstrated exceptional commitment to counter terrorism and to work forregional peace and stability.”
“The Committee reached a consensus that despite all unwarranted allegationsPakistan cannot act in haste and will remain committed to playing aconstructive role towards an Afghan-led and Afghan-owned peace process, notjust for the sake of its own people, but also for the peace and security ofthe region and international community.”
The NSC observed Pakistan could not be held responsible for the collectivefailure in Afghanistan and that blaming allies certainly did not serve theshared objective of achieving lasting peace in Afghanistan and the region.
The Committee observed that the close interaction with the US leadershipfollowing the initial pronouncement of President Trump’s policy on SouthAsia had been useful in creating a better understanding of each other’sperspectives on the best way forward to achieve durable peace and stabilityin Afghanistan.The visits of Secretary Tillerson and Secretary Mattis were also seen bythe Committee as robust and forward-looking.
The Committee observed that given this positive direction of progression,recent statements and articulation by the American leadership werecompletely incomprehensible as they contradicted facts manifestly, struckwith great insensitivity at the trust between two nations built overgenerations, and negated the decades of sacrifices by the Pakistani nation– a nation that has contributed so significantly to regional and globalsecurity and peace.
The participants noted that over the past several years, Pakistan’scounter-terrorism campaign had served as a bulwark against possibleexpansion of scores of terrorist organizations currently present inAfghanistan – a fact acknowledged by the US authorities at the highestlevels. Most of these terrorists have repeatedly launched cross borderattacks against innocent Pakistanis with impunity by exploiting presence ofmillions of Afghan refugees in Pakistan, a porous Pak-Afghan border andlarge tracts of ungoverned spaces inside Afghanistan.
The Committee observed that Pakistan had fought the war against terrorismprimarily out of its own resources and at a great cost to its economy, andthat even more importantly the huge sacrifices made by Pakistan, includingthe loss of tens of thousands of lives of Pakistani civilians and securitypersonnel, and the pain of their families, could not be trivialized soheartlessly by pushing all of it behind a monetary value – and that too animagined one.
It further observed that even today Pakistan was firmly supporting theUS-led international effort in Afghanistan; that it was continuouslyfacilitating this through vital lines of communications for smoothcounter-terrorism operations in Afghanistan by the international coalition;that as a result of Pakistan’s counter-terrorism cooperation, Al-Qaeda hadbeen decimated from the region; and that it was mostly because of thissupport that Pakistan was suffering a brutal backlash, including thekilling of hundreds of its schoolchildren by terrorists based inAfghanistan.
The Committee was of the firm view that the real challenges in Afghanistanwere political infighting, massive corruption, phenomenal growth of drugproduction and expansion of ungoverned spaces inside Afghanistan full ofsanctuaries for multiple international terrorist organizations, posing aserious and direct threat to Afghanistan, its neighbours and the entireregion.