Pakistan refuses to become proxy, will protect its own interests: Khawaja Asif

ISLAMABAD: Foreign Minister Khawaja Muhammad Asif on Friday said Pakistan refuses to become proxy to protect interest of foreign powers.

Speaking in the National Assembly, he said "they want us to protect their interests as proxy, but we will not do this. Pakistan will protect only its own interests, referring to US.

He said if Pakistan had not succumbed to US pressure in 2002, the war wouldn't have entered the country.

" We waged Jihad for the interest of US. We repeated this mistake after 9/11," he said.

The foreign minister said Pakistan rulers made compromises for their own vested interests instead of protecting interests of the country.

"We too had temptation to join the Yemen war, but we didn't," he said. He said Pakistan had sent its troops to Saudi Arabia in the past too but it never participated in "their foreign commitments".

He said Pakistan was also a "target" because Muslims from Saudi Arabia, to Morocco, to Afghanistan pin hopes on the country in difficult times.

Calling for a debate on the problems facing the Muslim Ummah, he said Pakistan wants an end to difference between Saudi Arabi and Iran.

The minister called the disputes in Syria, Iraq, Libya, Yemen and other Muslim countries part of "regime change" campaign.

He said 1400,000 people were killed in Iraq and 700,000 in Syria in a US war aimed at changing regimes in those countries.

"I do not support dictatorships. But people in Syria and Iraq had free education and health facilities before these war began," he said, adding that universities and hospital and the entire infrastructure was destroyed in the war.

He lamented the lack of unity among Muslim Ummah and policies of Muslim rulers and said that the Ummah  was on the brink of destruction.