‘Buckling under pressure not an option’

Foreign Minister Qureshi says Pakistan will decide when to launch an operation in North Waziristan.

MULTAN: Pakistan will not accept any external pressure and will itself decide whether to launch an operation in North Waziristan, Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi said on Saturday.

“We will launch the operation keeping in view our requirements, resources and priorities,” Qureshi told reporters in Multan, adding that there was no external pressure to launch such an operation. “The whole world acknowledges Pakistan’s sacrifices in the war on terror,” he said.

Responding to requests to “do more”, Qureshi said that Pakistan was making sincere efforts in the war against terrorism and had given up a lot. “Our people and even shrines are being targeted by terrorists,” he pointed out.

Qureshi said that the US had decided on a five-year security assistance programme for Pakistan in order to fulfill its defence requirements. “Energy is our requirement and we have conveyed to the US our desire of a civil nuclear agreement. There should be no discrimination on the civil nuclear programme. We also want to move forward.”

He said that he had presented Pakistan’s historic and principled view on Kashmir in the United Nations. “Kashmiri people are protesting against Indian atrocities and the world has admitted that the Kashmir movement is indigenous,” he said.

Qureshi said that Pakistan wanted to normalise its relations with India but the Kashmiri people should be given their due respect in the process of finding a solution to the Kashmir issue.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 31^st, 2010.