KARACHI: Jamaat-i-Islami chief Syed Munawar Hasan has stressed the need for revisiting the country’s foreign policy and said that the success of talks between the government and the leadership of Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan was linked to an independent foreign policy.
Speaking at a ‘Meet the Press programme’ of the Karachi Press Club on Tuesday, he said the government, army and most probably the Taliban were on the same page, which was definitely a good sign for the country’s future.
Terming the talks the only option for restoring peace in the country, he cited examples of deliberations between the Sri Lankan government and Tamil Tigers, the British government and Irish Republican Army and the peaceful struggle of Nelson Mandela.
He said a “military operation is tantamount to push the future of the country into darkness because history is evident that such operations had produced devastating consequences for the country”.
The JI chief said the main issue of Pakistan was growing terrorism, particularly in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan, and urged the government to take all stakeholders in KP and Balochistan on board to tackle it.
Mr Hasan said that a fifth military operation was going on in Balochistan and the authorities concerned had extracted nothing but tortured bodies of innocent Baloch people.
He said the US army and Nato forces, which constituted 60 per cent of total army of the world, had been defeated in Afghanistan. The JI had a firm belief that the western world wanted to push the Islamic movements towards terrorism, he added.
In reply to a question, the JI chief said that the $1.5 billion foreign aid reflected failure of the country’s economy.
Answering another question, Mr Hasan termed the ongoing operation in Karachi “cosmetic”.