ANP chief warns against changing corridor route

PESHAWAR: Awami National Party (ANP) chief Asfandyar Wali Khan Saturday reiterated his party’s stance over the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), saying they would resist any change in the original route come what may.
“[Prime Minister] Nawaz Sharif, you didn’t want to give identity to Pakhtuns, but we succeeded in doing so. Now you will again agree to our terms on economic corridor,” said the ANP chief while speaking to the charged party workers here at Shah Tehmas Football Stadium. The gathering was organised by ANP Peshawar city district.
The ANP chief criticised the federal government for keeping things secret regarding the economic corridor.
“Time and again we have asked [the federal government] to tell us where the industrial zones will be established but no one tells us, which means there is something fishy,” he remarked.
He said in previous PPP-led federal government the agreement was signed with the Chinese government wherein Punjab was not included. “Just to include Takht-e-Lahore in the project they want to change the entire route,” he maintained.
Asfandyar said they were not making the issue controversial rather the federal government was making it controversial. He said Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif gave a statement that those who were against the project were in fact against the prosperity of Pakistan.
“If Pakhtuns and Balochs benefit from the Chinese assistance, so is it Pakistan’s destruction,” he questioned.
Reacting to the statement of federal minister Ahsan Iqbal in which he had said that those who oppose the current route are traitors, the ANP chief said: “My grandfather and father were also dubbed as traitors so such statements do not affect me.”
He added no one could stop him from raising voice for the rights of the Pakhtuns.
The ANP chief criticised disenfranchisement of women voters in the recently held by-polls in Lower Dir.