US present in S. Asia to create chaos: Hina

islamabad — The US is not present in South Asia for peace and stability but to create chaos in the region, Pakistan’s former Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar has said.

“As George Friedman states in his book The Next 100 Years, the US is present there to create chaos in the region so that Russia, China, Iran and other regional countries can be contained,” Khar told CNN in an interview.

While discussing the New Year tweet of US President Donald Trump, Khar said that if she was in Foreign Office, she would have “ignored the tweet” and be “more concerned about tweeter than the tweet”.

Pakistan is still reeling from the after-effects of Trump’s first tweet of 2018 in which he announced cutting all further aid to Islamabad on charges of harbouring terrorists.

Asked what was her reaction after the aid cut announcement, Khar said: “The US is currently the superpower, but if you’re going to tweet away your foreign policy, then clearly frankly if I was in the Foreign Office of Pakistan, I would totally ignore this tweet.”

“This person is a habitual tweeter who tweets rather flippantly, almost like which side of the bed you woke up on. After all the other tweets, I think we should be more concerned about the tweeter than the tweet,” she said.

Khar said that Trump’s belief about Pakistan’s dependence on US aid was “exaggerated”, The Nation daily reported citing CNN. “I don’t think we’re dependent on it at all. As someone who managed Pakistan’s portfolios for almost five years, I can tell you that our reliance on them is vastly exaggerated.” —