Daily Times

QUETTA: Taking exception to opposition parties’ claims over efforts for a National Reconciliation Order (NRO) deal, Interior and Development Minister Ahsan Iqbal on Thursday said the ruling party has never struck an ‘NRO deal’ like one made by the Pakistan Peoples’ Party (PPP).

Addressing media persons on the occasion of inauguration of first executive passport office in Quetta, the interior minister said the ruling party’s policies helped turning the country’s economy around.

Iqbal said the country managed to overcome energy crisis and security issues in the last four years.

On the occasion, he called for the national unity to resolve prevailing issues, as he said, the collective energy should be utilized to take the country out of the problems rather pulling the government’s leg.

He said Pakistan Awami Tehreek (PAT) chief Tahirul Qadri along with major opposition parties should hold a ‘multi-parties conference’ to promote national unity.

“The politics of street agitation will benefit nobody except foreign conspirators,” he underlined.

Ahsan Iqbal said that India is spending hundreds of millions of dollars in order to create chaos in Pakistan by using the Afghanistan’s soil. “India wants to foil the CEPC mega project,” he said while calling for collective response to Indian aggression.

Coming on development projects in Balochistan, Iqbal said that the federal government has provided record funds to the universities of Balochistan.

He pointed out that the government has accorded approval for construction of forty small dams in Balochistan.

Interior Minister said that the Quetta-Gwadar Highway has been completed and a medical college would also be established at Gwadar University.

Earlier, the Interior Minister inaugurated the first Executive Passport office in Quetta.

Published in Daily Times, December 29^th 2017.