Islamabad: Prime Minister Imran Khan has strongly responded to US President Donald Trump's tirade against Pakistan, suggesting that Washington assess its efficacy in the War on Terror in Afghanistan instead of making Pakistan a scapegoat for its failures.
While speaking to Fox News on Sunday, Trump had attempted to justify his administration's decision at the start of 2018 to pull military aid to Pakistan by linking it to Osama bin Laden being found in Pakistan in 2011. 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. Trump also added that the US used to give Pakistan $1.3 billion a year, but doesn't anymore. I ended it because Pakistan don't do anything for us.
However, contrary to Trump's insinuations, former US president Barack Obama had said last year that We had no evidence that Pakistan was aware of his presence, that is something that we looked at.
PM Imran Khan responded to Trump's statements, saying that Islamabad had decided to participate in the US War on Terror, although no Pakistani was involved in the 9/11 attacks. Pakistan suffered 75,000 casualties in this war and over $123 billion was lost, he added, of which US aid was a miniscule $20bn, PM Imran Khan said.
In addition to economic losses, the PM highlighted the impact of the US war on Pakistan's tribal areas. Our tribal areas were devastated and millions of people were uprooted from their homes. The war drastically impacted the lives of ordinary Pakistanis, he said.
Pakistan continues to provide free lines of ground and air communications (GLOCs/ALOCs), he added. Can Mr Trump name another ally that gave such sacrifices? he asked.
Instead of making Pakistan a scapegoat for their failures, the US should do a serious assessment of why, despite 140,000 Nato troops, plus 250,000 Afghan troops and reportedly $1 trillion spent on the war in Afghanistan, the Taliban today are stronger than before, he suggested.
Earlier on, Minister for Human Rights Shireen Mazari also called Trump out over his remarks about Pakistan, saying, @realDonaldTrump suffers conveniently from perpetual historic amnesia!
Calling Trump's tirade a lesson for Pakistani leaders who kept appeasing the US after 9/11, the minister added, Whether China or Iran, US policies of containment and isolation do not coincide with Pakistan's strategic interests.
Relations between the United States and Pakistan, which began to strain in 2011, reached a new low in January when Trump suspended US security assistance to Islamabad over the alleged presence of Afghan militant groups in Fata. The government as well as the military had rejected the charge as incorrect.
The Inter-Services Public Relations had clarified at the time that that the Coalition Support Fund, received from the US, is reimbursement of money spent for operations in support of the coalition for regional peace.