Pakistan Tehrik-e-Insaf (PTI) chairman Imran Khan on Thursday reiterated that drones are violation of international law and counterproductive as they cause collateral damage in terms of increasing terrorism. He stated this during a one-on-one meeting with visiting US Secretary of State John Kerry. Imran apprised Kerry in very clear terms the party's viewpoint on drones, US war on terror and the US withdrawal from Afghanistan.
He said that drone attacks in tribal areas of Pakistan in turn allows the terrorists to exploit the narrative of jihad and creates the suicide bombers with their devastating suicide attacks.
To stop the suicide attacks, Imran told Kerry that the US has to take away the motivation, adding that this can only be possible through a complete halt of US drone strikes in the volatile tribal belt. The PTI chairman also stressed that Pakistan had to delink itself from the US war on terror to deprive the terrorists of their exploitation of the narrative of jihad.
On the US withdrawal from Afghanistan, Imran informed John Kerry that unless the withdrawal is orderly Pakistan will have to bear the brunt of the mess left behind, as happened with the chaotic Soviet withdrawal. "That is why all stakeholders must be taken on board so that a peaceful withdrawal can be achieved," he added. To a question of Kerry about PTI provincial government in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Imran explained how the province has to bear the major backlash of what happens in FATA as it is surrounded on three sides by FATA.
He also admitted the provincial police were ill-equipped to fight the terrorists, especially without a holistic national counter terrorism policy. Khan said he had initiated a request for the government to immediately develop a national counter terror policy and organisational framework but so far nothing had come from the government side.
Khan reiterated that once the terrorists wee deprived of the jihad narrative, the people of FATA will themselves reclaim their land. US Secretary of State listened to Khan's perspective and the meeting was held in a cordial manner.
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