Eurasia Press & News
Improving ties with India and Afghanistan is the top priority of Pakistan, which will focus on Southeast Asia and Europe to inject more economic content into ties for much-needed economic revival, a top official has said.
At the core of Sharif’s initiatives is the belief that Pakistan’s economic revival is not possible until it has improved and tension-free relations with neighbouring countries, particularly India and Afghanistan, said Tariq Fatemi, the Prime Minister’s Special Assistant on Foreign Affairs.
“Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif is a person who wants peace with India,” he said.
Fatemi recalled that it was while Sharif was in power in 1999 that a breakthrough took place with the then BJP government in India.
Pointing to the accident-prone history of Pakistan-India relations, Fatemi said in an interview with The Nation daily that Sharif’s view is that a degree of restraint and responsibility is needed on both sides to avoid any abrupt breakdown in ties.
Fatemi, a former career diplomat, has been one of Sharif’s advisors on foreign policy matters for nearly a decade now.
