Pakistan will respond instantly, effectively to border violations: Khawaja Asif

Statement comes a day after firing from the Afghan side in Chaman left 10 people, including an FC personnel, dead

Reiterating the stance for promoting mutual cooperation with Afghanistan to eliminate terrorism, Defence Minister Khawaja Asif made it clear Pakistan would respond instantly and effectively in a befitting way to border violations.

The statement comes a day after 10 people, including women, children and a Frontier Corps (FC) personnel, were killed and 47 injured after Afghan border forces opened fire at Pakistani troops guarding a census team.

Talking to journalists in Sialkot on Saturday, the minister stressed the need to promote mutual cooperation for establishing durable peace, saying Pakistan would continue its sincere efforts for better relations.

Nonetheless, he added, Pakistan is deeply monitoring its borders situation and is ready to protect its territorial boundaries as well.

Asif highlighted that Pakistan is successfully eliminating terrorism from the country besides continuously playing a front line role for establishing durable global peace.



On Friday, Pakistani forces deployed in Chaman returned fire and injured two Afghan security officials. Both sides rushed reinforcements to the border and Pakistani authorities closed the Chaman crossing indefinitely once again. Pakistan had closed the border with Afghanistan for a month after a series of terrorist attacks across the country left around 100 people dead.

Regarding China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), the defence minister said the project would open new vistas of socio-economic and human development in the Pakistan.

Asif also said 6,400 MW would be added to the national grid by year end and went on to add there was no unscheduled loadshedding being carried out anywhere in the country. "Only the areas where a power pilferage is ongoing are facing power outages," he said and added, "There is already no loadshedding in the industrial sector."