LAHORE: PML-N President Nawaz Sharif recommended that Pakistan needs a policy that ends the country’s reliance on US aid, saying that Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi should devise such a strategy.
The former premier was responding to the US withholding $255 million in aid to Pakistan following President Donald Trump’s tweet in which he said the US had foolishly given Pakistan more than $33 billion in aid over the last 15 years. “They have given us nothing but lies & deceit, thinking our leaders as fools,” Trump had stated.
Nawaz described Donald Trump’s tweet as “sad” and “non-serious,” and stressed that a head of state should be mindful of the diplomtic rules of engagement.
“Pakistan paid the highest price after 9/11” Nawaz said, emphasising that the country had lost the most in the war on terrorism.
“Had there been a democratic government in 2001, it would not have sold its conscience,” said Nawaz, who was deposed in 1999 by the-then army chief General Pervez Musharraf.
“We need to take stock of the domestic situation and find out why the world has a negative view of Pakistan,” he added.
