Islamabad - Senate Standing Committee on Interior Chairman and senior PPP leader A Rehman Malik has expressed grave concern over the US State Department’s Country Report on terrorism.
In a statement issued here on Tuesday, he said that State Department’s Report on Terrorism, 2018 had disappointed Pakistan as it was highly biased and illogical wherein the supreme sacrifices given by Pakistani troops and civilians in war against terrorism were completely ignored.
Malik said as a matter of fact, no country had done more than Pakistan to curb terrorism, and no country had suffered as much as Pakistan, both in terms of loss of human life and damage to the infrastructure.
He stated that the purpose of publishing the report was to use it as evidence against Pakistan in Financial Action Task Force (FATF). The senator added, “We have been exploited by the USA every time. We made a blunder when we decided to join the Afghan Jihad against the Soviet Union on US’s call.
Report ignored supreme sacrifices rendered by Pakistan
Malik said that Jihadis were America’s own creation because of whom “We are suffering today and the country has been dragged to the FATF. Truth of the matter is that we supported the Mujahideen when US asked for it.”
He said that it is gross injustice with Pakistan that it was being treated like a criminal by the FATF. “In fact former US President Bush should have been facing the trial as he was the one who armed and funded the Jihadis and hence carried out mass killings in Afghanistan,” Malik demanded.
He further said, ‘’I have been persistently telling the government as well as the whole world that the US will not let Pakistan’s name to be deleted from the FATF’s grey list.’’
The senator was of the view that Pakistan was being punished for its friendship with China, working on the China-Pak Economic Corridor (CPEC) and speaking out against India under RSS.
Malik said that there was a feeling in Pakistan that PM Modi was not courageous enough to change the status of Kashmir until he visited the US, and within days of his return from the country, he snatched the legal status of Kashmir.
Malik said, ‘’The people of Pakistan have the right to ask the US administration as to why it has turned a blind eye towards the brutalities in Indian occupied Kashmir (IoK) and acts of religious extremism by the ruling BJP in India.
He said that these terrorist organizations in question earlier fought against Russia with the total financial and armed support of USA and it itself was responsible for the creation & funding of all these Jihadi organizations in Pakistan. He said that US owes an explanation to the world as to how and from where these jihadi organisations were supported and financed with full money trail.’’
He said ‘’the then Secretary State Hillary Clinton had already accepted that USA funded Taliban and even Al-Qaeda’’. He asked the government of Pakistan to ask FATF to summon the former Secretaries of State and the then former US Presidents to justify and confirm the authenticity of the statement carried out by the two secretaries of states.
He said ‘’the trend and the anti-Pakistan signals demonstrated in the report clearly show that FATF is not going to take Pakistan out of the grey list unless Pakistan embarrass FATF in its discrimination with Pakistan and Pakistan will have to do this for its survival in the economic world.
He added that the continuity of Pakistan in grey list will bring huge financial problems for Pakistan which is already passing through financial crisis.
He hoped that the Government of Pakistan will take some sensible, pragmatic and evidence based measures before the FATF with the help of China which has already warned member countries not to politicise FATF and to not use the forum against Pakistan.
He said that China has clearly stated, “China does not want the FATF to be politicised by any single country.
