ISLAMABAD – COAS General Qamar Bajwa has offered joint operations with the Afghanistan Army to strike the Haqqani network bases in Pakistan, if they find any, Foreign Minister Khawaja Asif has revealed.

Pakistan has also offered the United States a joint operation against the Haqqani Network, Foreign Minister Khawaja Asif said in an interview with a local news channel on Monday.

The minister told the outlet that “Islamabad has offered US authorities to visit Pakistan with details of the Haqqani Network’s safe havens in the country. If they found any activities in the targeted areas, our forces along with the US would destroy them once and for all”.

About the repeated US demands of ‘do more’ in the war on terror, Asif said: “If the US administration exerts more pressure on us, friend countries including China, Russia, Iran and Turkey will stand by our side.”

The minister said that Pakistan would refuse to accept “if the US foreign and defence secretaries are coming to dictate us”. “Now we will do what is in the best interest of our country,” he went on to say, adding that Afghan President Ashraf Ghani was offered the same option during the meeting with Chief of Army Staff General Qamar Javed Bajwa during his recent visit to Afghanistan.