New Delhi: Pakistan army chief, General Qamar Javed Bajwa on Tuesday urged the country’s lawmakers to improve relations with India, assuring them that their efforts would be fully backed by the Army.
Bajwa also told the lawmakers that the country should normalize its relations with all the other countries including India. Accusing India of stirring instability and terrorism in Pakistan, Bajwa said that most of the Indian army deployments were against the country.
General Qamar Bajwa made his first appearance before a parliamentary forum and urged the lawmakers to mend ties with India. The army chief was invited by Senate chairman Raza Rabbani. He was accompanied by Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) chief Naveed Mukhtar, Major General Sahir Shamshad Mirza, Major General Asim Munir and some other top officials.
Bajwa had earlier said that Pakistan desires peaceful and normal relations with its “belligerent” neighbor India but ‘it takes two to tango’. “We have also expressed and demonstrated our genuine desire to have normal and peaceful relations with India, however, it takes two to tango,” Bajwa said.
In the National Security Strategy, the US had said it would continue to press Pakistan to do more on counter-terrorism and be a “responsible steward” of its nuclear assets.
Pakistan rejected what it called accusations made in the Trump administration’s first national security strategy, saying “unsubstantiated allegations” in the document trivialized Islamabad’s efforts to fight terrorism.
While unveiling the document on Monday, President Donald Trump said, “We have made clear to Pakistan that while we desire continued partnership, we must see decisive action against terrorist groups operating on their territory. And we make massive payments every year to Pakistan. They have to help.”
Referring to India, Pakistan said, “Ironically, a country with a record of defiance of UNSC resolutions, introduction of nuclear weapons in South Asia and use of terrorism as a state policy is being projected as a regional leader. South Asia’s strategic stability is being undermined by what it called India’s “brutalization” of people of Kashmir and “incessant ceasefire violations targeting innocent civilians.”
It also said that the Afghan soil is being constantly used by elements hostile to Pakistan’s stability.