Pakistan no longer dependent on US for military requirement: PM Abbasi

ISLAMABAD - Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi has said Pakistan did not require to depend on the US anymore for meeting its military requirement as it has other sources for it.

Giving an interview to Arab News after his returning from the UN General Assembly in New York, he clarified: “If one source dries up, we have no option but to go to another source. It may cost more, it may consume more resources, but we have to fight that war, and that’s what we emphasized to all the people that we met".

“Any sanctions or restraints… put on our systems only degrades our efforts to fight terror, and it affects the whole equation in this region,” he said, adding, “We have major US weapons systems in our military, but we’ve also diversified. We have Chinese and European systems. Recently, for the first time, we inducted Russian attack helicopters.”

Calling on the world to acknowledge the struggle made by Pakistan in the war against terrorism,  he said: “Any sanctions or restraints… put on our systems only degrades our efforts to fight terror, and it affects the whole equation in this region”.

Terming his meeting with US Vice President Pence "constructive," he said: "Whatever concerns they (the US) have, we’ve shown our willingness to address those concerns".

He also denied allegation levelled by US President Donald Trump and said, "we [US] have a common objective: To destroy terror and bring peace to Afghanistan.”

Stressing a need to resolve the Afghan issue through Afghan-owned and led process, he said that nobody wanted peace in Afghanistan more than Pakistan. He said that terrorists who are carrying out attacks in Pakistan have their sanctuaries in Afghanistan.

India’s role

“We don’t believe that injecting India into the Pakistan-US relationship will help resolve anything, especially in Afghanistan, where we don’t see any role for India. India has a relationship with the US. That is between them and the US.”

He said Pakistan wanted to work with the US “to resolve regional” and “global issues… ranging from the economy to nuclear” matters.