Karachi : Former Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi has said Pakistan should review its counterterrorism strategy after discouraging statement of US official Admiral Mike Mullen on Pakistan’s counterterrorism policy given soon after visiting Pakistan.
Qureshi said that so far thirty thousand Pakistanis have lost their lives in fighting the war on terror being fought in Pakistani territories, besides country suffered loses of hundreds of billion dollars.
He expressed this while talking to newsmen during his visit to headquarters of Sunni Tahreek (ST) hereon Friday.
Shah Mehmood Qureshi said that discouraging arguments of US officials on Pakistan’s serious counterterrorism efforts has raised many serious questions. Pakistan should revisit its policy on war on terror, he added.
He said he has established a working group comprising of Mashaikh of various shrines and clerics of Ahle-Sunnah to seek recommendations to counter the terrorism activities in the country.
He said that he held a meeting in Multan in which more than 86 Mashaikh of various shrines were invited to discussed measures for safeguarding sanctity of the holy shrines. He said that next meetingof the working group would be held in Rawalpindi.
Shah Mehmood urged the masses to foster unity in their files and ranks in order to defeat terrorism inthe country.
Condemning the terrorist activities at the shrines of Hazrat Data Darbar, Hazarat Abdullah Shah Ghazi,Pak Patan Sharif and Sakhi Sarwar, Qureshi said that so far 36 terror attacks were reported on variousshrines in the country.
To a question about the involvement of foreign hands involved in terrorism, Mehmood responded that he has no crystal ball to determine who was patronizing terrorism in Pakistan.
He said that new administrative units in the form of provinces could be established as population of country is increasing day by day. “There is a possibility to create new provinces but dialogue on various platforms is mandatory to develop consensus among masses in this connection.”
To a query about the derogatory remarks of his party political colleagues after he took bold stand on Raymond Davis issue, he said did not take anything personal. “May God bless them, who criticized me.”
Chief Sunni Tahreek Sarwat Aijaz Qadri was also present. PPI
