Vice President SAARC Chamber Iftikhar Ali Malik has urged all the mainstream political parties to set aside their political differences for the sake of the country and sit down together to evolve a joint strategy to counter US-India diplomatic pressure on Pakistan in either way.
The SAARC CCI vice president in a statement on Thursday said political stability in Pakistan is vital to face internal and external threats including new US Trump administration and Indian aggressive policies towards Pakistan. The political parties should adopt unanimous approach to scale down US pressure on Pakistan and give a message to foreign powers that entire Pakistan stands united and on one page to face internal and external security challenges, he added.
He also asked the political parties leadership to give a signal to the international community that Pakistan would wipe out the menace of terrorism and would not allow any terrorist group to use its soil against any country. US President Trump announced his policy towards Afghanistan and South Asia hitting out at Pakistan for providing safe haven to what he called the "agents of chaos" that killed Americans in Afghanistan, he said.
Malik slammed US President Donald Trump policy about alleged terrorists' safe haven in Pakistan and said his illogical stance is singularly unhelpful in achieving the objective of strategic stability and durable peace in the South Asian region. He said the US administration instead of imposing restrictions on Pakistan should offer fruitful help to Pakistan for revival of its economy so that we can fight more efficiently against terrorism.
For this purpose, he suggested that the United States and Pakistan expand cooperation on the 2013 Joint Action Plan on Trade and Investment as the United States remains Pakistan's largest bilateral export market and a significant source of foreign direct investment.
He said the United States is Pakistan's largest bilateral trading partner. He said it would be in the interest of both the countries to enhance their trade volume which had been hovering around $5 billion for the last five years. SAARC CCI vice president further said that the Trump-led US administrations should recognize the colossal sacrifices rendering to stamp out terrorism in the region as Pakistan is bearing irrecoverable heavy loss due to active participation in war on terror.
"In the wake of US invasion of Afghanistan, Pakistan saw a huge influx of Afghan refugees as one of the main host countries followed by a sudden rise in the number and scale of terrorist attacks in the country. The cumulative impact of these developments adversely impacted the overall growth rate in all major sectors of the economy.
Normal economic and trading activities were disrupted badly, resulting in higher costs of doing business and significant delays in meeting the export orders around the globe. As a result, Pakistani products gradually lost their market share to their competitors. Economic growth could not pick up as planned," he pointed out. He said that instead of relying on the false narrative of safe havens, the US needs to work sincerely with Pakistan to stamp out the menace of terrorism.