Nawaz regrets over non-serious tweet by Trump about Pakistan

ISLAMABAD: Former prime minister and President Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) Muhammad Nawaz Sharif Wednesday said issuing a non-serious tweet by the US President Donald Trump about Pakistan at the advent of New Year was highly regrettable.

“Head of any state should keep in consideration the international and diplomatic norms while talking about another state,” he said while addressing a crowded press conference here at the Punjab House.

He said the Coalition Support Fund (CSF) should not be given the name of any aid or charity, rather Pakistan’s great sacrifices in war against terrorism should be acknowledged.

“We do not need such a fund,” he said, urging Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi to devise a strategy to reduce Pakistan’s dependency on foreign aid so that its self-respect could not be hurt.

He highlighted the unmatched sacrifices of the country’s armed forces, law enforcement agencies, people and children rendered in the war against terrorism and regretted that those were not being acknowledged by the international community.

“We as a patriot must also ponder that why our narrative is not being accepted by international community despite rendering huge human and financial sacrifices,” he said, adding there was a dire need of self-accountability and coming out of self-deception to secure future of the country.

After the 9/11 incident, he said, no country in the world except Pakistan suffered such a huge human and financial losses in war against terrorism. “We have been engaged in a war, which was not basically ours.”

“The American president must realize that after coming into power in 2013, the PML-N government reiterated its resolve to fight against terrorism and initiated the military operation Zarb-e-Azb, which resultantly broken the backbone of terrorism, while remnant terrorists would be cleared soon,” he said.

Had there been any democratic regime back in 2001, it would have not bowed down before threats as was done by a dictator who was ruling the country at that time, he lamented.

Talking about the country’s prevailing political environment, PML-N President Muammad Nawaz Sharif stressed the need for holding the upcoming general election, scheduled to be held this year, in a free, fair and transparent manner to strengthen democracy and put the county on the real path of progress and prosperity.

“Give the democracy a chance to flourish,” he said and warned in the same breath that any misadventure to steal the mandate of people would prove counter-productive and drag the country away from progress and prosperity.

Terming the 2018 as an election year, he deplored that the history and fairness of elections in the country had not been so good.

The PML-N leader said no election was held in the country in first 23 years after its creation and later, either the elections were manipulated or the results of vote were not accepted wholeheartedly.

“That is why from Liaquat Ali Khan Shaheed, not even a single prime minister of the country completed his/her constitutional tenure,” he observed.

He feared that the history was being repeated in 2018 elections to stop one party from progressing ahead and impose those parties and people who lack public support.

Nawaz Sharif said the people whose politics revolves around lies, accusations and sit-ins and those whom people of Pakistan rejected repeatedly were being imposed on them.

However, he said, the people of Pakistan were well educated, so their opinion should be respected.

He warned that if such activities continued, he would come forward with all the evidences and proofs and make them public and would also reveal before the people of Pakistan what had happened during the last four years.

He underlined the need for ensuring providing level-playing field to every political party in the election-2018, paving the way to flourish the democracy in its real form.

Quoting a recent survey, he said PML-N's popularity among the public had significantly increased and expressed the confidence that it would again emerge as a leading political party in the next general election.