Islamabad: The Pakistani Prime Minister’s Adviser on Foreign Affairs, Sartaj Aziz, on Tuesday told the Senate authorities were taking action against all terrorist groups without any exception, including the Haqqani network.
“Our policy towards all militants and their networks, including the Haqqani network, is quite clear: We will fight them wherever they are and will never tolerate their presence on our soil,” Aziz said.
The senior government official was giving a policy statement on a motion moved by Taj Haider and others about the implications of the statement by the chairman of the US armed services committee in Kabul, soon after his visit to Pakistan.
He said, all this was being done in the national interest and government policy was not dependent on attitude change of any country.
The adviser said, “We remain convinced that Pakistan-US cooperation is a prerequisite to achieve lasting peace in the region and we have conveyed that the end-state for both US and Pakistan is a stable and peaceful Afghanistan that has no ungoverned spaces from where terrorists plan and carry out attacks on a third country. McCain is also of the view that Pak-US relations was more important than ever before.”
On the issue of Haqqani network, the visiting US delegation was told that since 2013, the present government through operation “Zarb-e-Azb” had destroyed terrorist networks across the country including the tribal areas, he said.
Sartaj Aziz said the delegation was taken to Wana, South Waziristan, to see for themselves the outcome of these operations.
The US delegation was briefed about Pakistan’s efforts to secure the borders through fencing and enhanced surveillance, he added.
“However, we also informed them of the fact that more than three million Afghan refugees lived and worked in Pakistan and to identify every operational level elements hostile to Pak-Afghan interests was not always possible. We therefore emphasised the safe return of refugees at the earliest,” he said.
