Ahsan defends Ayaz’s controversial remarks

Says ‘a weak economy translates into a weak defence’

LAHORE:

Defending PML-N leader Ayaz Sadiq’s controversial remarks that had, at the very least, given the Indian media an opportunity to question the defence capabilities of Pakistan, party General Secretary Ahsan Iqbal said that there was nothing illogical about Ayaz’s statement, explaining that “a weak economy translates into a weak defence”.

To a question about Ayaz’s statement at a news conference in Lahore on Thursday, Ahsan said that the international rule was that diplomatic strength of any country reflects its accumulative national strength. “Accumulative national strength is reliant to an extent on armed forces and to a larger extent on its economic and foreign policy depth.”

He said that when one isolates a country diplomatically and bankrupts its economy, then “how you can expect it to meet the running expenses of war, which are very high”.

He said, “When you weaken a country's economy, their diplomatic options become limited and this is what we have been saying over and over again. If our economic security is not revived, our tanks, missiles and atom bombs wouldn't be of any use.”

Ayaz had claimed that Pakistan had released captured Indian Air Force pilot Abhinandan Varthaman fearing retaliation from the neighbouring country.

Earlier, Ahsan warned Prime Minister Imran Khan and the incumbent government to stop jeopardising the future of the extremely sensitive and strategic Gilgit-Baltistan by trying to rig the elections.

He demanded of the government to immediately recall all federal ministers from the region and rescind all measures taken to meddle with the upcoming elections.

Ahsan said that the same experiment of engineering elections and coercing electables that led to the devastating results for Pakistan in 2018, is being applied in G-B to get desirable results.