ISLAMABAD:Director General Inter Services Public Relations (ISPR) Major General Asif Ghafoor says Pakistan has eliminated sanctuaries of all terrorists groups, including the Haqqani Network, from its soil through a well-thought-out military campaign.
During an exclusive interview with Gulf News, he said Pakistan has paid a huge price in this campaign, including losing over 75,000 Pakistani lives and bearing a loss of more than 123 billion dollars to the national exchequer.
DG ISPR said operation Radd-ul-Fasaad has been launched to eliminate remaining disorganized residual presence of militants.
He said effects of operation have visibly reduced the level of violence throughout Pakistan.
Major General Asif Ghafoor said presently there are over 200,000 Pakistani troops deployed in FATA along Pak-Afghan border.
He said Pakistan has started to fence entire 2,611-km length of Pak-Afghan border and construction of new posts along the border to deny free cross-border movement of terrorists.
Asif Ghafoor said besides operations, Pakistan has undertaken major socio-economic development projects in cleared areas to carry forward relative stability to enduring peace.
On the possibility of peace between India and Pakistan, he said India is not only challenging Pakistan conventionally along our eastern borders, but is busy in fomenting unrest through terrorism using Afghan soil.
He said Pakistan has arrested a serving Indian naval officer, Kulbhushan Jadhav working as RAW agent in Pakistan.
He said Pakistan is a peaceful country and doesn't want conflict with anyone.
However, our desire for peace should never be construed as our weakness.
For normalized Indo-Pak relationship, all issues including the core issue of Kashmir between the two nuclear countries need to be resolved.
DG ISPR said present violence inside Afghanistan should not be linked to Pakistan.
He said to ensure achieving peace in Afghanistan, ungoverned spaces inside Afghanistan would have to be cleared by Afghan and Resolute Support Mission Forces.
On CPEC, he said enemies of peace and of Pakistan are trying to scuttle CPEC, but Pakistan shall never let them succeed.
He said Pakistan Army has the responsibility for security of the project, which is engine of progress not only for Pakistan but for the region. APP/AFP