ISLAMABAD: State Minister for Interior Shehryar Afridi on Tuesday said that the country needs to focus on its national interests and avoid paying attention to what the world is saying.
“We sacrificed lives in the war on terror and its results should come forward. Every nation and its leader has the right to express their views,” he said while speaking to media in the federal capital.
“We have to assure the world and humanity that our sacrifices will not go to waste. We do not need to pay attention to what the world is saying and should only focus on our own interests,” he added.
Earlier, PM Imran had rejected US President Donald Trump’s remarks against Pakistan, suggesting that Washington should assess its success in Afghanistan instead of making Pakistan a scapegoat for its failures.
While speaking to Fox News on Sunday, President Trump sought to justify his administration’s decision at the start of 2018 to pull military aid to Pakistan by linking it to al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden being found in Pakistan in 2011.
“They [Pakistan] don’t do a damn thing for us,” the US president had said.
Speaking of the compound in Abbottabad where bin Laden was found in 2011, Trump said the bin Ladens had been “living in Pakistan right next to the military academy, everybody in Pakistan knew he was there”.
However, contrary to Trump’s insinuations, former US president Barack Obama had said last year: “We had no evidence that Pakistan was aware of his presence — that is something that we looked at.”