ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister Imran Khan said Pakistan did not wish to join any bloc in the region but instead desired trading ties with all nations, including Russia.
In an interview with the state-owned RT channel of Russia ahead of his tour to Moscow, he observed Pakistan suffered during the Cold War as it found itself caught up in the bloc politics, and reiterated Islamabad did not wish to repeat the mistakes of the past.
The prime minister said the last thing Pakistan wanted was a world split into geopolitical blocs.
He said cooperation among regional nations — including Russia, China, and even the United States — would be in the interest of the world.
Khan said Pakistan wanted to strengthen bilateral relations with Russia and looked forward to his visit to Moscow.
The prime minister said Pakistan was a gas deficient country and pointed out that North-South Gas Pipeline suffered delay due to the United States sanctions on the Russian state giant building it.
He said Pakistan was negotiating for the construction of the pipeline and also eyed buying the cheapest gas from neighbouring Iran after the lifting of the US sanctions.
He expressed hope for a peaceful resolution of the Ukraine crisis, emphasising that military options did not prove as the solution to conflicts.
“I am not a believer of military solutions but dialogues,” he said, adding the attempt to apply the same solution to Afghanistan could not save the people of the country from suffering.
He said conflicts could have disastrous consequences on the people of poor countries, who already faced poverty in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic.
On ties with India, he said his government reached out to New Delhi after the assumption of power in August 2018 to resolve the Kashmir dispute.
However, he regretted that India was following a racist and supremacist ideology inspired by Nazism and denied resolving the issue of Kashmir.
Khan termed climate change and the illicit flow of money from poor to developed countries as the two major challenges faced by the world.
He mentioned that plunder of the developing world continued as $1.5 trillion every year were transferred illegally to offshore companies led to severe consequences globally including rising hunger and poverty.
The ruling elite of the world, he said, affected the process of accountability. “The only way to remove the imbalance is to make laws to check drug money,” he said.
Asked how would he like to be remembered, he said he wanted to be the one who made a big change in the lives of the common people by bringing them out of poverty, ensuring rule of law, and building a humane socio-welfare society.
