Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi chaired a meeting of the National Security Committee (NSC) on Wednesday. The country’s top civil and military leadership was in attendance to discuss issues of national security.
According to sources, the committee devised a response to the US policy on Afghanistan laid out in the recent speech by US President Donald Trump and the government’s response to engage ‘friendly’ countries following Trump’s statement was also discussed.
In the meeting, which lasted for around four hours, the Military Operations director general (DG) also gave a detailed briefing on the situation along the borders of India and Afghanistan, according to sources.
The prime minister chaired a meeting of the federal cabinet on Wednesday, which was the first cabinet meeting following Trump’s ‘anti-Pakistan’ tirade during his ‘South Asia Policy’ speech last week.
Meanwhile, Foreign Minister Khawaja Asif, while speaking to a private news channel, clarified that he will not be visiting the US and added that “at this time it is not appropriate for any US official to visit Pakistan and vice-versa.”
A meeting of the NSC last week has already rejected Trump’s policy statement and it was decided during the meeting to contact other friendly countries and take all stakeholders into confidence regarding Pakistan’s reservations over the new US policy.
The premier, in an interview to a foreign news outlet on Monday, made clear that there is only a political solution to the Afghanistan issue. He observed that the US president’s new policy for the region is bound to be unsuccessful.
Trump in his speech last week came down hard on Pakistan, blaming it for providing safe havens to terrorists.
