Daily Times

Caretaker Federal Minister for Information and Broadcasting Murtaza Solangi on Thursday said that Pakistan intended to move forward by developing itself as a progressive and democratic nation that desired peace within its frontiers and across the world.

Speaking at an international conference “Navigating Peace & Security in the Region and Beyond: Pakistan’s Role,” organised at the Institute of Strategic Studies Islamabad (ISSI), he said: “We want to be a nation that wants to look after its people and intends to focus on the welfare of its masses.”

The minister said now the Pakistan government had a clear vision to focus on its people, and economic revival and it had recently taken several initiatives to bolster the economy and explore new prospects for trade and investment.

He said the countries and political leadership did make mistakes in the past and Pakistan also had its share of mistakes and adding “but now we want to move on”.

The minister said it was in Pakistan’s interest to avoid the ongoing confrontation between major world powers. He said that Pakistan had some lessons from its role with regard to the confrontation of major powers in the past.

Solangi said now Pakistan was desirous of establishing good relations with its neighbours including India and Afghanistan. and added Islamabad already enjoyed good relations with China and Iran.

He said that Pakistan also enjoyed very good relations with Middle East countries and now it was focusing to further improve economic and trade ties with the oil-rich states.

He said Pakistan also wanted to have pragmatic relations with Kabul. There had been no positive outcomes so far despite Pakistan’s sincere efforts to improve ties with Afghanistan, he added.

He said that unfortunately out of 24 suicide attacks in the recent past, 14 had the involvement of Afghan nationals.