President Asif Ali Zaradri, Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani and Chief of Army Staff General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani have decided 'tit for tat' response if Nato forces again violate Pakistan's territory. Sources told Business Recorder that the troika also decided that Nato supply line into Afghanistan would be closed, again, if Nato forces violated western boarder of the country.
The decision was taken in a meeting of the Prime Minister and the Chief of Army Staff with the President here at Aiwan-e-Sadr on Saturday. Sources said that it was also decided in the meeting that in the next round of strategic Pak-US dialogue, the government would also demand of America to provide drone technology to Pakistan to counter the menace of terrorism.
They said that various issues, including security, defence, socio-economic projects, enhancement of power generation capacity and infrastructure, would be discussed in the forthcoming Pak-US strategic dialogue. Defence Minister Ahmed Mukhtar and Finance Minister Abdul Hafeez Sheikh were also present in the meeting, besides Foreign Secretary Salman Bashir and Finance Secretary Salman Siddique.
Sources said that various issues, including terrorism, recent suicide incidents, US drone attacks in tribal area, on-going military flood relief activities, increasing of defence budget, Pak-Afghan relations, and forthcoming Pak-US strategic dialogue were discussed during the meeting. Briefing the media, spokesperson to the President, Farhatullah Babar, said that the meeting was held to deliberate upon the forthcoming Pak-US strategic dialogue, scheduled to be held in Washington soon.
He said that the government wanted to pursue multifaceted comprehensive co-operation between the two countries, while at the same time address issues like drone attacks, reimbursement of coalition support fund arrears and RoZ legislation. He said that the challenges being faced by the two countries vis-à-vis the security situation would also come under discussion and to further promote the intelligence sharing mechanism and the capacity enhancement of the security forces.
The President has all along maintained that Pakistan ha suffered a colossal loss, both in human and the material losses, due to the on-going fight against militancy and the recent devastating floods have further added to the economic woes. He said that the situation calls for the help of the international community especially the US to support Pakistan and advocate its case for having greater access to its products in the international markets. The President expressed hope that discussions during the forthcoming dialogue would be productive and help carry forward the progress made so far in the mutually agreed areas of co-operation and where Pakistan needs more help from the United States.
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