Pakistan will not compromise on its sovereignty: Mukhtar

ISLAMABAD: Defence Minister Chaudhry Ahmad Mukhtar on Wednesday said Pakistan will not compromise on its security and sovereignty and regain control of Shamsi Airbase, according to the deadline.

“We will take over the Shamsi base on December 11 in any case and no drone will be allowed to fly from here after the deadline,” he said this while talking to the media persons at the convocation of Preston University here.

The minister said Pakistan does not want conflict with US but cannot tolerate attacks on its sovereignity.

He said that Pakistan will review other agreements with the US in different sectors and all the decisions will be taken in the supreme interest of the country.

Answering a question, Mukhtar said Pakistan’s nuclear assets are fully secured.

About Shah Mehmood Qureshi’s recent statement,the minister said, Qureshi did not point out any flaw in the system when he was minister.

Mukhtar advised Qureshi to avoid issuing statements which are not in conformity with the national spirit.

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Pakistan says decision on Afghanistan conference is final

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s decision not to attend a conference on the future of Afghanistan in Germany next week, taken to protest against a Nato cross-border attack that killed 24 soldiers, is final, a foreign ministry official said on Wednesday.

“Of course it’s the final word. Pakistan is not attending,” the official told Reuters, shortly after the German government urged Islamabad to reverse its stand.

Fury over the attack is growing, with more protests across Pakistan and tough editorials in newspapers.

“It is definitely not Pakistan’s intention to work against the rest of the world,” Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar told FTNews television on Wednesday.

“But the rest of the world also has to understand that if they have pushed Pakistan into this corner, violated red lines, then they have denied the basis of partnership,” she said.

Islamabad’s decision to boycott next week’s meeting in Bonn will deprive the talks of a key player that could nudge Taliban militants into a peace process as Nato combat troops prepare to leave Afghanistan by the end of 2014.

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Zardari offers Korea to set up economic zone in Pakistan

ISLAMABAD: President Asif Ali Zardari on Wednesday offered Korea to establish its economic zone in Pakistan to boost trade ties between the two countries.

The President was chairing a meeting to discuss his forthcoming visit to Korea and to highlight investment opportunities for the Korean businessmen and investors in Pakistan.

Representatives of Korean companies were also present.

Briefing about the meeting Spokesperson to the President Farhatullah Babar said President Zardari invited Korean companies to take advantage of most attractive investment opportunities available in Pakistan in different sectors including oil and gas, mining, trading, energy, information technology and telecom, food and agriculture, Small and Medium Enterprises, infrastructure and tourism.

Zardari said he looked forward to his visit to Korea which would help boost economic and trade ties between the two countries.

He said with emerging market of 180 million people, Pakistan was a potential hub of the economic activities in the region as it was located at the crossroads of West Asia, South Asia, Central Asia and China and provided shortest access to North and South Asia through Gwadar Port.

He said Pakistan was a force multiplier for the economies of the countries in the region and held the key to economic development in the area.

The Spokesperson said the President appreciated managers and heads of Korean companies operating in Pakistan for their investment and their interest to further explore business opportunities here.

He assured the participants that Pakistan government would continue to extend maximum facilitation and provide them with every possible support in realizing their investment objectives.

He said the government was keen to transform the existing relationship with the Republic of Korea into economy-oriented equation for the benefit of the two countries.

“We need to translate our existing relations in economic terms,” the spokesperson quoted the President, “so as to take advantage of each others’ resources and opportunities.”

Highlighting Pak-Korea relations, the President mentioned landmark infrastructure projects completed with the help of South Korean companies and said it testified lasting relationships between Pakistan and the Republic of Korea.

The Korean companies represented Star Hydro Power, Lotte Pak PTA Co Ltd. Karachi, SAMBU Pak (Pvt) Ltd, Hyundai Engineering Co, Lotte Engineering and Construction Co, Deokjae Connecting Roads (Pvt) Ltd, Daewoo Pakistan Express Bus Service Ltd, Daewoo Pakistan Motorway Service Ltd. Karachi, LS Cable, Hyundai Corporation Karachi and Poonsan Corporation.

The meeting of the President with the heads and executives of leading Korean companies was also attended by Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar, Communications Minister Dr. Arbab Alamgir Khan, Finance Minister Dr. Abdul Hafeez Shaikh, Makhdoom Shahabuddin, Federal Minister for Textile Industry, Syed Naveed Qamar, Federal Minister for Water and Power, Secretary General to the President M. Salman Faruqui and Chairman BOI Saleem H Manndviwala.

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Pakistan’s security more important than Afghanistan’s: PM

KARACHI: Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani on Wednesday said that Pakistan wanted to have ties with the United States on an equal footing, FTNews reported.

He moreover said that Pakistan wanted assurance for the respect of its sovereignty.

During a conversation with media representatives in Karachi, Prime Minister Gilani said that Afghanistan’s soil had been used against Pakistan. He said Pakistan’s security was paramount and more important than the security of Afghanistan.

He further said that the Bonn conference was being held for Afghanistan and Pakistan had to work for its own security. The decision to boycott the conference was in favour of Pakistan, he added.

The prime minister moreover said that the United States had been given a deadline of December 4 to vacate the Shamsi airbase.

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Twelve militants killed in Kurram clash

PESHAWAR: Twelve suspected militants were killed during a clash with security forces in the Kurram tribal region’s Masozai area on Wednesday, FTNews quoted security sources as saying.

Seven security personnel were also wounded in the clash, sources said.

The sources claimed that Kurram’s areas of Marghan and Matano had been cleared of militants.

Moreover, an operation was carried out in Masozai due to the suspected presence of militants in that area, sources said.

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Pakistan may summon BBC as news channel blocked

LAHORE: Pakistan said on Wednesday it was looking at summoning the BBC to demand an explanation over a documentary about the Taliban that has left the BBC World News channel blocked nationwide.

Cable operators pulled the channel late Tuesday amid anger over Nato air strikes that killed 24 Pakistani soldiers.

The move raises concerns about censorship in the conservative Muslim country of 167 million, where Facebook was briefly banned in 2010, just days after the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority sought to ban “obscene” text messages.

Khalid Arain, chairman of the Cable Operators Association of Pakistan, confirmed that BBC World News was off-air nationwide and that other Western news channels had been ordered “not to indulge in anti-Pakistan propaganda”.

The row relates to a two-part BBC documentary, “Secret Pakistan,” which questions Pakistan’s commitment to tackling Taliban militancy.

The BBC said it was deeply concerned by the move, and called for its channel to be speedily reinstated.

Pakistan’s media regulator, PEMRA, said: “Definitely, since an issue has been highlighted, the authorities will review the contents of the broadcast and their programmes.”

The authorities can summon BBC representatives and seek an explanation from them,” PEMRA spokesman Tahir Izhar told AFP.

Arain said Pakistan was not legally bound to show any foreign channels and was also monitoring Britain’s Sky News for “any objectionable content.”

Pakistan has aroused increasing criticism overseas and from human rights campaigners within the country over censorship. The row over the BBC saw people post links to the documentary on their Facebook and Twitter accounts.

“It is clear violation of our basic right to information. I condemn it,” said Shujauddin Qureshi, a human rights activist.

Saad Haroon wrote on Twitter, “They have taken BBC off the air in Pakistan, great, now we will be the LAST to know when they bomb us.”

Last week, the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority was forced to row back from banning text messages containing any of nearly 1,700 “obscene” words, many of which were seemingly innocuous, following outrage from users and campaigners.

Pakistan blocked Facebook for nearly two weeks in May 2010 in a storm of controversy about a competition to draw the Prophet Mohammed and has restricted access to hundreds of websites because of alleged blasphemy.

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PML-N paving way for martial law: Raja Riaz

LAHORE: Opposition Leader in the Punjab Assembly Raja Riaz Ahmed said on Wednesday that the Sharif brothers were paving way for martial law in the country but democracy-loving people would foil such moves.

In a brief telephonic conversation with this news agency he said, PML-N leaders repeatedly made efforts to derail the present democratic set up but each time they had to taste bitter defeat.

“Their rallies and public meetings could not impress the PPP government,” he said.

The PPP leadership is fully aware of people’s problems and is pursuing an agenda which would bring prosperity to them.

To a question, Raja Riaz said Pakistan condemned the Nato air strike at every level and took strong steps to give a bold response to the aggression.

He said Pakistan’s armed forces were fully capable of defending the frontiers.

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Clinton hopes for Pakistan cooperation despite Bonn boycott

BUSAN: US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said on Wednesday she regretted Pakistan’s decision to boycott next week’s international conference on Afghanistan but hoped to secure Islamabad’s cooperation in future.

“Nothing will be gained by turning our backs on mutually beneficial cooperation. Frankly it is regrettable that Pakistan has decided not to attend the conference in Bonn,” Clinton told a news conference in South Korea.

Pakistan pulled out of the conference on the future of Afghanistan on Tuesday in reaction to a cross-border attack by Nato that killed 24 of its soldiers and plunged US-Pakistani relations deeper into crisis.

“I would express regret and hope that perhaps there can be a follow-up way that we can have the benefit of Pakistani participation in this international effort to try to work a stable, secure peaceful outcome in Afghanistan.”

Clinton stressed that US officials were making every effort to investigate what she called a “tragic incident”.

“What is most important I think is that we learn lessons from this tragedy because we have to continue to work together.”

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