Imran lashes out at Trump for ignoring Pakistan’s sacrifices in Economist interview
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ISLAMABAD: PTI chairman Imran Khan has lashed out at US President Donald Trump for ignoring Pakistan’s sacrifices in the “war against terror”.
“Donald Trump doesn’t have a proper understanding of Pakistan, especially the whole Pak-Afghan situation as it has evolved since 1979,” said Khan in a podcast interview with the Economist magazine April 26. “It’s a very complex situation.”
He said the US president was blaming Pakistan and the army for his country’s failure in Afghanistan. “People in Pakistan were deeply hurt. They felt his remarks were ignorant of the sacrifices Pakistan had given in what was an American war on terror.”
Khan accused former Pakistan president and military ruler Pervez Musharraf for joining “America’s war against terrorism” and said that people like him kept saying that we should not have entered this war.
“Pakistan had nothing to do with 9/11 but we were overruled by military dictator General Musharraf.”
Politics
The PTI chairman said there is consensus among Pakistani political parties that “no longer is martial law supposed to be a solution”.
“The real problem is governance,” he said. “What Pakistan needs is governance.”
Khan praised Zulfikar Ali Bhutto as “the last PM of quality”.
He said other institutions step up and fill the vacuum when you have a weak and corrupt government that lacks the moral authority to govern.
When asked about the Pashtuns protesting, Khan said he sympathized with them and he has opposed military action in the tribal areas. “When an army goes in[to] civilian areas, there are massive violations of human rights,” he said.
The PTI chief called for the merger of the tribal areas with the PTI-governed Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in order to protect what he said were human rights.
APP/AFP
