Pakistan offers defence expertise to allies

Manama : The expertise of the Pakistani force in successfully countering terrorism in its Afghan borders can be helpful for the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) allies and other countries across the Middle East, said Sartaj Aziz, Advisor on Foreign Affairs to Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif.

Sartaj Aziz made the statements yesterday while offering counter-terrorism, defence and capacity building expertise to GCC allies
during the last plenary session of the 12th Manama Dialogue 2016.

“Pakistan has successfully defeated the terrorism by weeding out all pockets of resistance across its northern border with Afghanistan and urban areas of the country. During the military operation in which about 3,000 security officials and 50,000 civilians lost their lives, the country dealt with the overwhelming threat of terrorism and that expertise can be helpful for our brotherly states in the GCC,”he said.

Sartaj Aziz further said that the notion of Pakistan not supporting the Saudi led coalition against Yemen was not ‘true’.

“Pakistan refused to help GCC states due to its internal commitment on war against insurgency and dealing with other geo-strategic realities of Pakistan. In such
circumstances it was not possible to send boots on the ground for the Arab coalition,” he added.

“We have a very strong military and security ties with the GCC countries and the military training for defence forces of Bahrain and Saudi Arabia would continue.” 

In response to a question that there might be major job losses for overseas Pakistanis working in the GCC, Sartaj said that jobs in the Middle East are demand driven and if one sector goes dry there will be another opportunity.

Talking about the China Pakistan Economic Corridor or CPEC, Sartaj Aziz said that the development of Gwadar will be a game changer for the region given the shorter route to China. 

“The CPEC will bring prosperity to all countries of the region starting from China, Pakistan and Central Asian States and the Arab world. The new short trade link will leave a profound impact on the regional economy,” he said.

Sartaz added that CPEC will be a game changer and that it offers unique investment opportunities. 

China is investing $46 billion on infrastructure and energy projects in CPEC making it one of the largest investments to date on any project in recent years. This project, according to an estimate, will stir hundreds of billion dollars investments in all vital sectors of the economy across the region and will create millions of jobs as well.