Prime Minister Raja Pervez Ashraf has said that Pakistan took the decision of reopening the ground lines of communication (GLOCs) for NATO supplies in the interest of regional peace and stability in accord with national interests.
He said Pakistan was ready to facilitate the transition process in Afghanistan as a responsible member of the international community and a neighbour who stood to directly benefit depending upon how situation unfolded in that country. The prime minister expressed these views while talking to Cameron Munter, the outgoing US ambassador to Pakistan, who paid a farewell call on him at the PM’s House on Wednesday. The prime minister said Pakistan supported an Afghan-led and Afghan-owned inclusive peace and reconciliation process and extended its unstinted support to the international efforts for peace and stability in Afghanistan. “Despite our own economic constraints, the government has announced the financial assistance for Afghanistan to the tune of $20 million,” he said. The prime minister said despite recent challenges in the bilateral relations between Pakistan and the US, it was matter of satisfaction that things were back on track, “thanks to multi-layered engagements between Pakistani leadership and their American counterpart. We need to look ahead and move forward in building durable and mutually beneficially partnership between both countries and their peoples based on mutual respect and mutual interest”, he added.
Ashraf said strategic partnership between Washington and Islamabad manifested the depth of bilateral relations. He said Pakistan looked forward to more US cooperation in the fields of energy generation, infrastructure development, water management, agriculture and human development. He said under the government’s policy of ‘trade not aid’, the government hoped that the Obama administration would work with Congress on greater market access on preferential tariff.
He said the country was a frontline state against war on terror and had suffered the losses more than any other country in the world. He said that Pakistan expected of the allies to also respect her redlines. He said that the government had taken effective measures on the counter-IED during last few months to control illegal flow of IEDs ingredients into Afghanistan.
