Former interior minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan on Wednesday lambasted the strategy announced by US President Donald Trump for Afghanistan and South Asia, saying Pakistan was not responsible for the failure of US and its allies in Afghanistan.
Nisar also ridiculed Trump’s claim that the US has paid “billions and billions of dollars” to Pakistan, calling on the Pakistani government to put on the table the record of past 20 years to expose American claims.
“It’s not billions of dollars, it is peanuts,” the former interior minister said while speaking in the National Assembly.
Nisar said that the Coalition Support Fund paid by US is for the services rendered by Pakistan in the fight against terrorism.
“They have ruined our roads, our airspace, our country, but are not ready to pay for the expenses.”
“Put your money where your mouth is,” Nisar railed, adding that the US has been able to point fingers because Pakistan did not keep a proper record of American assistance.
Nisar said while he was the interior minister, he had called for an “international audit” of US claims that it had paid Pakistan $240 million within five years.
But that “very democratic country [US] did not respond to the audit proposal, and the matters are still the same”, he said.
He said peace in Afghanistan was more in Pakistani interest than of the US, but “no one should expect one-sided cooperation from Pakistan”.
Agreeing with Opposition leader Khursheed Shah, he said that a joint session of the parliament should have been called to discuss the response to the US policy instead of a National Assembly session.
A message conveyed from the united parliament would be positive, he added.
Source: Dawn
