Daily Mirror (Sri Lanka)

Pakistan will no longer fight someone else’s war: Imran Khan

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ISLAMABAD AFP DEC7, 2018 - Pakistan will no longer act as a hired gun in someone else’s war, Prime Minister Imran Khan said Friday, striking a note of defiance against US demands for Islamabad to do more in the battle against militancy.

Khan, who also reiterated his backing for a recent push by the US for talks with the Taliban in Afghanista­n, said in a televised address that he wants Pakistan to move forward with “honour”.

“We will no longer fight someone else’s war, nor will we bow down in front of anyone”, the former cricketer said.

Islamabad joined Washington’s “war on terror” in 2001, and says it has paid a heavy price for the alliance, which sparked an Islamist backlash and homegrown militant groups

who turned their guns on the Pakistani state, costing thousands of lives.

Security has dramatical­ly improved in recent years after a military crackdown.

But the US continues to accuse Islamabad of ignoring or even collaborat­ing with groups such as the Afghan Taliban and the Haqqani network, which allegedly attack Afghanista­n from safe havens along the border between the two countries. The White House believes that Pakistan’s Interservi­ces Intelligen­ce agency and other military bodies have long helped fund and arm the Taliban both for ideologica­l reasons and to counter rising Indian influence in Afghanista­n.

It believes that a Pakistani crackdown on the militants could be pivotal in deciding the outcome of the war.

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Imran Khan

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