{"id":42267,"date":"2018-01-06T12:40:12","date_gmt":"2018-01-06T07:40:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tns.world\/?p=42267"},"modified":"2018-01-06T12:40:12","modified_gmt":"2018-01-06T07:40:12","slug":"pm-abbasi-says-pakistan-can-survive-without-insignificant-us-financial-assistance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tns.world\/?p=42267","title":{"rendered":"PM Abbasi says Pakistan can survive without insignificant US financial assistance"},"content":{"rendered":"

London, Jan. 6 (TNS):<\/strong> Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi has declared himself mystified by US threats to cut off funding, saying that US financial assistance was \u201cvery, very insignificant\u201d and that Pakistan was \u201con the forefront of the war on terror\u201d, British media reported on Saturday.<\/p>\n

In an interview with the\u00a0Guardian<\/em>, Abbasi said that reports that the US was considering cuts of up to $2bn in security assistance were bewildering because of the total aid Pakistan \u2013 civilian and military \u2013 actually received was a tiny fraction of that amount.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am not sure what US aid has been talked here,\u201d Abbasi said in his office in Islamabad.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe aid in the last five years at least has been less than $10m a year. It is a very, very insignificant amount. So when I read in the paper that aid at the level of $250m or 500 or 900 has been cut, we at least are not aware of that aid.\u201d<\/p>\n

Donald Trump used his first tweet of 2018 to threaten to withhold aid to Pakistan because of what he called its \u201clies and deceit\u201d over terrorism, claiming: \u201cThey give safe haven to the terrorists we hunt in Afghanistan, with little help.\u201d The president has that the US had \u201cfoolishly\u201d given Pakistan $33bn over the past 15 years.<\/p>\n

According to the US Agency for International Development, the US gave $778m to Pakistan in assistance in 2016, of which 35 per cent was military and the rest economic.<\/p>\n

The threatened would include both US military assistance and Afghanistan coalition funding to Islamabad. A senior official was quoted by the French Press Agency as saying that potential cuts could affect bilateral security assistance and funding that is channelled to Islamabad through the US-led coalition in Afghanistan.<\/p>\n

The official said it was \u201capproximately $2bn worth of equipment and coalition support funding that is in play\u201d.<\/p>\n

The official added that \u201call options are on the table\u201d when it comes to further moves, including stripping Pakistan of its status as a \u201cmajor non-Nato ally\u201d.<\/p>\n

Pakistani officials said that the amounts actually of aid money spent are much less that those quoted and they plan to publish their version soon.<\/p>\n

PM Abbasi rejected Trump\u2019s charge of duplicity over the fight against terrorism, calling his claim that Pakistan was harbouring terrorists a \u201cfallacy\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cPakistan is a sovereign country and Pakistan has always abided by international conventions,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are today fighting the largest war on terror in the world. We are fighting the world\u2019s war on terror with our own resources \u2026 That is something the world has to appreciate.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have over 6,500 [killed] almost 37,000 of the civilian population has been killed. There are tens of thousands of people injured. We have suffered a loss of over $120bn in our economy. So the world has to appreciate that. We just want the world to know that Pakistan is on the forefront on the war on this terror.\u201d<\/p>\n

Terrorists are as much a threat against Pakistan as they are to us: Mattis<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cToday we are fighting terrorists. So if somebody says we are harbouring terrorists, there is no greater fallacy,\u201d Abbasi said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have engaged US at every level from President Trump down. We have explained to them \u2026 what Pakistan has done we have explained to the rest of the world also.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201c[It\u2019s] the rest of the world failed in Afghanistan to control terrorists who today attack Pakistan across the border. Pakistan has won the war against terror on its own territory,\u201d Abbasi said.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

London, Jan. 6 (TNS): Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi has declared himself mystified by US threats to cut off funding, saying that US financial assistance was \u201cvery, very insignificant\u201d and that Pakistan was \u201con the forefront of the war on terror\u201d, British media reported on Saturday. In an interview with the\u00a0Guardian, Abbasi said that reports […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":42268,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[491],"tags":[247,733],"class_list":["post-42267","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-london","tag-london","tag-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42267","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=42267"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42267\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":42269,"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42267\/revisions\/42269"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/42268"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=42267"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=42267"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=42267"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}