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Wednesday, March 31, 2010
US realises Pakistani nation has delivered, says Qureshi
ISLAMABAD: The US has realised that the Pakistani nation has delivered and now it is their turn to do something, Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi said on Tuesday.
Commenting on the recent Pakistan-US strategic dialogue, Qureshi said it is a process that has been initiated.
“You have to see the difference between the past and the present meetings. The level of interaction has been upgraded. You can see the level of participation. There are specifics and by the end of April, we will be delivered a large sum and by the end of the current financial year, the backlog will be cleared,” he told a private TV channel.
On when will solid things, such as access to foreign markets, come to the fore, Qureshi said a conducive environment needed to be created first to achieve these things.
He said, “It was also agreed that Pakistan needs economic assistance. We presented them a dossier of our demands.”
On whether a lengthy dialogue process was required to gain something significant, Qureshi said, “We have interacted with all important personalities of their administration. They have thus far shown their seriousness in cooperating with us and realised that if they do not meet Pakistan’s security and economic needs, their own agenda to achieve stability in Afghanistan gets affected.” Separately, talking to the visiting Uzbek Foreign Minister Dr Vladimir Norov, Qureshi reiterated Pakistan’s desire to diversify and strengthen bilateral ties with Uzbekistan. He noted that there was an immense mutual political goodwill in the two countries but bilateral economic ties still lagged behind.
Qureshi said a peaceful and stable Afghanistan would also open up new economic and trade vistas for the two countries. Vladimir Norov renewed his country’s offer to supply 1,000 megawatts of electricity to Pakistan through Afghanistan, while Qureshi said the proposal was being studied to assess its viability. app
Courtesy www.dailytimes.com.pk