DAVOS: Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif said on Thursday that his government has successfully addressed the challenges of terrorism, energy shortages and economic revival and Pakistan today is fast heading towards a promising and prosperous future.
He was giving a talk on “Regions in Transformation – South Asia” here at the Congress Centre and shared with the participants the perspective of Pakistan in the regional context. The event was held in the form of a panel discussion that was moderated by Lisa Gibbs, Business Editor of the Associated Press, involving a question answer session. The focus of the prime minister’s talk was on “Infrastructure and energy security threats, economic inequality and job creation and impact of regional integration initiatives.”
The other participants included Sri Lankan Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe, Yunus Centre Chairman Muhammad Yunus, Chanda Kochhar of ICICI Bank and Asian Development Bank President Takeshiko Nakao. The prime minister said the decision to launch military operation Zarb-e-Azb was taken after careful consideration, it was calculated and 180,000 troops were committed to it and it was yielding very good results. “We were able to destroy their infrastructure and dismantle their networks, hideouts and sanctuaries and this has broken their back.”
“We knew that the blowback would be severe. It was severe when the operation was started and now the terrorists are on the run and they are choosing soft targets,” the prime minister said. He referred to the terrorist attack at Bacha Khan University in Charsadda and said the university proved to be an easy target for the terrorists and precious lives were lost. However, he said that the ability of the terrorists to strike back has been considerably weakened. Pakistan has paid a very heavy price in terms of lives, apart from economic losses of more than hundred billion dollars, Nawaz said.
“However our resolve to fight terrorists is getting stronger,” he said, adding that it was very important for his government to tackle the challenges it inherited, as soon as his government came into power. He said these involved reviving national economy, power shortage and scourge of terrorism. “So I think we were successful on all these three fronts and with the terrorism coming down, and militancy reducing, the economy is picking up.”
DAILY TIMES
YEMI.
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