“War is not the way to resolve issues and the worst thing that could happen is if there is a conflict between Iran and the US and its allies, as it will be disastrous,” said PM Imran.
“I spoke to President Trump yesterday and I told him that this would be disastrous for us if this war starts. But he didn’t say anything. I think he understood and sanity will prevail. Conflict in Afghanistan is still going on and any conflict with Iran would be a bigger problem,” he noted.
He said: I do not understand why countries go to resolve differences through military conflicts because the moment you start a military conflict you don’t know where it is going to go.
“You can start a conflict but you cannot finish it, we have seen Pakistan joining the US war on terror and I was the one who was objecting to it as I thought Pakistan should have stayed neutral as Pakistan had nothing to do with 9/11,” Imran Khan noted.
He added later 70,000 people died and over 100 billion US $ lost and finally "we realized that we have had made a mistake".
He viewed if there is a conflict with Iran, oil prices will shoot up and that will cause poverty all over the world and God knows how long it will go on.
“We in Pakistan pray that this does not happen we have tried our best we have already talked to Saudi Arabia we talked to Iran, the US,” he said.
PM Imran Khan added Pakistan is actively playing a responsible role in defusing tensions between the US and Iran.
He said Pakistan has played its part to ease tensions between Iran and Saudi Arabia and the US and Iran. “We try to play our part in easing tensions,” he stated.
PM Khan went on to say Pakistan joined Afghanistan Jihad in 80s which led to creation of militant groups and once the US left Afghanistan we had terrorism here and culture of militancy, guns, drugs, sectarian groups came in which caused of lot of damage to us.
He stated that Pakistan will not become part of any conflict in future rather will be partner in peace.
He added now Pakistan is facilitating Afghanistan peace process and hopefully there would be an agreement between Taliban and the US.
Prime Minister expressing his views said 2019 was the safest year in Pakistan after 9/11 and it is reflected in the growth of tourism. He added Pakistan has great tourism potential which is untapped.
He said the government is now focusing on tourism as Pakistan is the most undiscovered country on terms of tourism in the world. “It is the country which have sacred places for four religions,” he noted.
PM Khan said currently there is no terrorism in Pakistan, our security forces did a brilliant job in this regards. “But we need peace and stability in Afghanistan as terrorism comes in Pakistan from Afghanistan, so peace in Afghanistan is good for Pakistan which will allow us to connect to Central Asia,” said the PM.
Imran Khan said economy of Pakistan cannot grow unless there is peace and stability. After nine eleven incident, Pakistan faced the similar dilemma and seventy thousand Pakistanis sacrificed their lives in terror wave.
Referring to economic situation of the country, he said his government inherited fiscal and trade deficits at huge scale.
In order to stabilize the economy, the government took tough decisions, resulting in upward trajectory of stock market, stabilization in value of rupee and increase in foreign reserves.
He said in one year ease of doing business improved by 28 points as per World Bank estimates.
The Prime Minister said Pakistan has a population of 210 million people and sixty percent of our population comprises of youth.
Imran Khan said "we have started skill development programs encouraging youth to start their own businesses and entrepreneurial projects. We hope to harness the potential of our youth for economic prowess of the country."
PM said Pakistan is endowed with rich mineral resources including gold and other deposits and we are now focusing to exploit these fully. He said apart from minerals, Pakistan is blessed with fertile land whose full potential has yet to be explored.
He said with the help of China under China Pakistan Economic Corridor, work is being done in enhancing the agricultural productivity of the country.
The Prime Minister said Pakistan is placed at a very important geostrategic position. He said with the peace in Afghanistan, Pakistan can tap the benefits of energy rich Central Asia besides acting as a bridge between East and West Asia.
He added on one side of Pakistan is China, which is the fastest growing economy in the world.
“Then we have Iran and hopefully if things settled down and if we have more trade with Iran both countries will get the benefit,” said Imran Khan.
He went on to say that situation with India is not as it should be adding normal trade ties between the two countries will benefit both.
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