US indirectly encouraging terrorism:Shahbaz Sharif

Lahore: Punjab Chief Minister  Shahbaz Sharif has said that if the US wants the elimination of terrorism in true sense it would have to support the strategy of Pakistan. He said that the menace of terrorism had caused maximum damage to Pakistan and almost fifty-thousand innocent citizens including officials of the armed forces, police, rangers and security agencies had lost their lives due to terrorism. “Our economy is continuously under pressure and we are facing difficulties in moving ahead”, he added.

In a statement, here today, Punjab Chief Minister Muhammad Shahbaz Sharif said that American attitude was hampering the serious efforts aimed at the maintenance of peace and was indirectly encouraging terrorism.

The Chief Minister said that he had expressed reservations over the American aid just because of the drone attacks and the overall American behaviour and it was because of that the American aid was renounced to the extent of Punjab. He disclosed that while talking to a high level American official, he termed the drone attacks insulting to Pakistan’s autonomy and sovereignty.

The American official was a bit surprised at his remarks. After a few days, during a meeting, he assured that the US would not carry out any drone attacks during the dialogue process to be initiated by the Pakistan government. He expressed lamentation that this top level guarantee was not honoured even.

Shahbaz Sharif cautioned that if problems continued to be created for Pakistan, the serene and sincere efforts of the government towards the elimination of terrorism, would suffer a setback. World community needs to realize the ground reality and must put its weightage to the strategy of Pakistan failing which the elimination of terrorism would get all the more difficult.