Imran Khan in a bold stance asks to expel excessive US diplomatic, intelligence staff and stop US supply line
Shares
SLAMABAD: Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Chairman Imran Khan has slammed the United States (US) President for threatening Pakistan and termed Donald Trump as ungrateful.
In his tweet, the PTI Chief said, “I had consistently opposed Pakistan becoming a part of the US-led so called war on terror. Today after being humiliated by an ungrateful Donald Trump the GoP has realised the mistake of dragging Pakistan into the US-led war.”
He maintained, “Pakistan has paid a heavy price in terms of over 70k Pakistani lives lost, $100 bn loss to economy; and society radicalised & polarised.”
Imran added that he had always opposed Pakistan fighting someone else’s war – as a “gun for hire”. He said that the losses suffered by Pakistan as a result of going into the US-led “war on terror” have been enormous.
The PTI Chairman wrote, “The time has come to stand firm and give a strong response to the US. Two immediate measures can be taken by Pakistan to send an unambiguous message to the US: One, we must immediately remove excessive US diplomatic, non-diplomatic and intelligence personnel from Pakistan so that diplomatic party is established according to international legal norms governing diplomatic relations between states. Two, we must deny the US GLOC and AIRLOC facilities which we were providing free of cost to the US.”
He said that as for the threat of the US rescinding Pakistan’s Major Non Nato Ally status, Pakistan should welcome it as it meant little in concrete terms.
He accused that only used, outdated weapons were available for Pakistan to purchase and added that Pakistan was not US-dependent on its strategic weapons system. Imran said advised that Pakistan should fight terrorism for its own sake in a holistic manner because of what it had wrought on our society, aided and abetted from across the borders.
He further said, “Daesh is on our western borders with Afghanistan and hostile powers may use it to foment trouble in Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) unless we mainstream FATA by merging it into Khyber Pakhtukhwa without wasting any more time.”
“A vacuum will give these hostile powers and their terrorist proxies to wreak havoc in Pakistan through FATA”, he added.
He went on saying that it was the time for Pakistan to delink from the US especially after the new National Security Strategy announced by Trump in December 2017 which again targets Pakistan while emphasizing the need to give India an increasing strategic role in Afghanistan and the region. “While Pakistan does not seek a conflict with the US, it cannot continue being the scapegoat for US failures in Afghanistan”, he further said.
Let it be known that the US President Donald Trump, in his tweet, had said, “The United States has foolishly given Pakistan more than 33 billion dollars in aid over the last 15 years, and they have given us nothing but lies & deceit, thinking of our leaders as fools.”
He added, “They give safe haven to the terrorists we hunt in Afghanistan, with little help. No more!”
