SIALKOT: Federal Minister for Defence, Water and Power Khawaja Muhammad Asif Saturday said Pakistan always wants to establish durable peace and peaceful ties with its neighbours, including Afghanistan and India.
"No one should consider desire of peace as our weakness. The defence of the country is in strong hands and we have capability to give a strong response to enemies," he added.
He said this while addressing a meeting of lawyers held at the District Bar Association (DBA) office here on Saturday. MLA Azad Jammu and Kashmir Ch Muhamamd Ishaq, Mayor of Sialkot Municipal Corporation Chaudhary Tauheed Akhtar, Deputy Commissioner Dr Asif Tufail, President Sialkot DBA Shaukat Ali Chaudhary and General Secretary Zahid Saleem Bajwa were also present.
Asif said Pakistan was closely monitoring the border tension situations along its Eastern and Western borders, adding that the nation stood united to defend every inch of the motherland. He said establishment of military courts in the country had become demand of the day and vital to cope with terrorism.
He said the country was passing through an extra ordinary circumstances and was in dire need of making extra ordinary measures to tackle internal and external challenges.
He said the government was committed to weed out terrorism from the country, adding that the Pak Forces ongoing operation against terrorism had broken the nexus of terrorism.
The minister saluted the armed forces and other law enforcing agencies and the masses for battling against terrorism, adding that the nation stands united against terrorism and was ready to sacrifice their lives while battling against terrorism shoulder-to-shoulder with the armed forces.
Earlier, the minister announced Rs 10 million special grant for Sialkot District Bar Association (DBA).
He urged lawyers to utilise their full energies for dispensing justice to the needy, oppressed and poor people in society.
He assured that all problems being faced by the lawyers community would be resolved amicably. He said the government firmly believed in supremacy of law and rule of law in the country.
He said the government was also making sincere efforts for ensuring an early transition of powers to the local bodies in the country, adding that the LBs played pivotal role in strengthening democracy and democratic norms.
He pledged to get the District Courts Sialkot exempted from loadshedding during the working timings.
On the occasion, Asif announced the establishment of Sialkot Campuses of Agriculture University Faisalabad and Bahria University at Sialkot, adding the process of establishing Sialkot Campuses of National University of Science and Technology (NUST) and Textile University was under progress. He said the government had already a special tranche of Rs 180 million for the NUST campus at Sialkot.
The minister said the construction work of mega project of Sialkot-Lahore Motorway had been started at various places near Daska, Sambrial and Sialkot. He added the project would be completed within a stipulated period of the next one-and-half years.
He said the project of Sialkot-Lahore Motorway had been extended to Kharian-Gujrat, Dina-Jhelum, Mirpur, Muzaffarabad-AJK.
Asif announced to connect the Sialkot-Lahore Motorway with the CPEC projects as well. The minister said the Punjab government had also allocated special development funds of millions of rupees for the early dualization of main Sialkot-Eimanabad Road from Pull Aik Sialkot city to Dharam Kot-Daska for providing better means of communication to people.
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