ISLAMABAD March 27 (TNS): Interior Minister Ahsan Iqbal said on Tuesday that a roadmap for the formulation of National Internal Security Policy is centered on goals defined in vision 2025 that envisages a sharing peace, stability and development link which is key to progress.
He was addressing a national conference on “Internal Security: Peace & Sustainable Development”, organized here at Pakistan Planning and Management Institute (PPMI). The event brought together diplomats, government representatives, retired armed forces officers and students from across the country and individuals from public and private entities.
Iqbal said that the new internal security policy framework was directed towards establishing a new paradigm for policy on security and peace and added a more empirical and evidence-based approach focused on implementation of the goals should have been adopted.
“We have steered the country towards progress. We have to take practical steps now to consolidate the gains made and improve our capabilities for new and future threats to our peace and security,” he said.
The minister said that political stability plays a vital role in development, which requires avoiding conflicts. National security has become a broad subject with social, political and economic dimensions gaining importance, he said.
“We have to believe ourselves now. We have brilliant minds that make good policies but our only and only problem is implementation which we need to address. We must develop a comprehensive approach to the ownership of all stakeholders to succeed in implementation,” he said.
National Security Adviser Lt-Gen (retd) Nasser Khan Janjua said security and economy were very important for progress and prosperity.
“We are facing a lot of issues. We shall fix everything. We need political stability to correct all of them including rooting out terrorism and extremism,” Janjua said.
He said Pakistan has suffered a lot in the war on terror both in terms of lives lost and damage to the economy, but the international community has not looked upon our sacrifices in this war with a positive attitude.
