News
Saturday, September 03, 2011
Xinjiang plays strategic role in Pak-China relations: ZardariBEIJING: President Asif Ali Zardari said that Xinjiang was playing a strategic role in tightening the relationship between China and Pakistan on Thursday.
“The region is the closest point to my border and it is where the future of Pakistan and China meets, so we are hoping that the region could act as the linking point of a communication network as well as a road and railway network between the two countries,” President Zardari said during an exclusive interview with China Daily on the sidelines of the first China-Eurasia Expo.
The Expo is taking place in Urumqi, the capital of the Xinjiang Uighur autonomous region, from September 1 to September 5. It is President Zardari’s first visit to Xinjiang and he said he “always wanted to see this part of China”, which is the most important region on the old Silk Road connecting Asia and Europe. “Now Xinjiang will once again become the trading point,” he said.
In a speech at the expo, Zardari said that Pakistan already had a highway leading to Xinjiang, while a cross-border railway was on the agenda.
He said that through such efforts, Pakistan was to become the gateway for China to enter South Asia, adding that the Silk Road would be fully revived.
The president said that the development of the western parts of China, including Xinjiang, was truly remarkable and that Pakistan viewed Xinjiang’s development and prosperity as its own. Zardari said that Pakistan, as the frontline in counter-terrorism, badly needed the world’s patience.
“The world today is losing its patience because maybe terrorism is not happening in some countries and their tolerance level is going down,” he said.
“The world should really come together to fight terrorism and treat it as a long-term war,” he added. He said that a phenomenon of terrorism was that non-state actors could take nations to war.
“All the people who were involved in the September 11 attacks in the US 10 years ago were non-state actors and they had taken the superpower to war,” he said, adding, “Now those non-state actors, including individuals and groups, have decided to take on nations.”
He said that countries and people around the world had to recognise that the war against terror was a war against a mindset that was trying to change the world order and that it should be combatted accordingly. Zardari earlier said that Islamabad was fighting terrorism and extremism with all its strength.
“The recent incidents of terrorism in Xinjiang dismayed us,” Zardari said, adding that terrorism would not discourage the march towards development and prosperity. He also vowed closer cooperation with China in counter-terrorism efforts.
The president applauded China’s efforts to fight religious extremism, which in Pakistan has pitted “neighbours against neighbours and friends against friends” the paper reported. app
Courtesy www.dailytimes.com.pk