ISLAMABAD – Defence Minister Engineer Khurram Dastgir Khan has said thatAmericans are choosing to blame Pakistan for its sixteen years old failurein Afghanistan.
In an interview with the national radio and TV channel of Belgium, DefenceMinister said that US has spent a trillion dollars; they have sacrificedthousands of soldiers, many more injuries and even now, nearly 45 percentof Afghanistan is outside the government’s control.”
The minister warned, as long as the situation is unstable in Afghanistan,there will remain unrest in Pakistan, said a press release issued here onFriday.
Replying to a question on Pak-US relations the minister said: “We expectthe Europeans toconvey our point of view to the Americans who are at the moment not veryreceptive to Pakistan’spoint of view; it is to say that again let’s keep the eyes on the prize, asthe Americans say. And theprize is a stable democratic Afghanistan.”
On the internal security situation of Pakistan, the minister said: “Wellthe internal security situation is massively improved. There is no otherword for it. I think we have performed a miracle.
So, the whole of Pakistan is now peaceful. We still get some terroristincidents. But largely, theincidents of terror are down by 80 percent from their peak in 2012”.
He said: “The murdering of 142 children in Army Public School in 2017cleared the mind of the people of Pakistan. These were not religiouspeople, these were not anti-American crusaders, these were not nationalistpeople. They were just evil people who wanted to hurt Pakistan”.
Talking about improvement in Pakistan’s economic situation Khurram DastgirKhan was of theview: “Pakistan has the fastest growing consumer market in the world at themoment. There is a lot of interest from international retailers, foodoutlets, and companies who want to tap Pakistan’s consumer market.”
He said Pakistan is finally at the threshold of utilising its potentialbecause of its very strategic geographical location. But now finallybecause of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor theinvestment infrastructure was coming in, we are about to exploit itspotential.”
Khurram Dastgir Khan said in order to end the blame game Pakistan has begunto fence the2600 kilometre border.
Pakistan has already fenced 250 kilometre border without anybody’s help, headded.