US should leave Pakistan, Afghanistan: Imran

PTI chief says 34,000 Pakistanis killed in ‘irrelevant’ war.

SUKKUR:

Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf (PTI) chief Imran Khan has said that the US should pull out its forces from Afghanistan and Pakistan as they have achieved their target of capturing or killing Osama bin Laden. After Bin Laden’s death, he added, America’s mission in the region is finished.

Khan observed this while addressing a press conference in Sukkur on Tuesday. He said that Pakistan has lost 34,000 of its citizens in this irrelevant war, while according to the government, the country has incurred a loss of Rs68 billion.

Commenting on Bin Laden’s death, Khan said that he had no idea how it was done. “Even our president wasn’t aware of the incident, and was informed about it by the US president,” Khan said.

Elaborating on the post-Bin Laden situation, he said that the Americans will think that Pakistani agencies were sheltering him, and they might pressure Pakistan to start an army operation in North Waziristan. He claimed that the government has lost credibility in the world community and that Pakistanis are not trusted abroad.

The former cricketer also lashed out at the rulers for what he said was lying to the nation on a number of issues, including drone attacks, the release of Raymond Davis, the [alleged] presence of Blackwater/Xe and CIA operators in Pakistan.

Imran Khan said that 45 per cent of the people on the electoral rolls were fake while 35 million young people have yet to be registered. However, he was optimistic that if the electoral rolls were corrected according to the NADRA database, his party would sweep the coming elections.

When asked about the formation of a coalition with any political party for the upcoming elections, he said that his party could join hands with the Sindh National Front, as its leader Mumtaz Ali Bhutto was not corrupt, even though they had a difference of ideologies.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 4^th, 2011.