Pakistan has expressed displeasure over a Cabinet Minister’s remarks that destabilization in that country continues since late General Zia ul Haq staged a coup d’état.
“It is very unfair to say that as your Government benefited most from that military regime,” Pakistan’s Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs, Nawabzada Malik Amad Khan told a dinner in his honour at the Colombo Hilton on Friday night. It was hosted by Deputy Foreign Minister, Hussein Bhaila.
Mr. Khan was in Colombo to represent Pakistan at the two-day Asian Co-operation Dialogue conference at the BMICH. He was alluding to the defence material provided to Sri Lanka to fight Tiger guerrillas when the late Gen. Zia ul Haq was in power.
Education Minister Susil Premajayantha, who is also the General Secretary of ruling UPFA, told a news conference on Wednesday:
“Look at Pakistan. The country is in a total mess since military strongman Zia ul Haq took over rule in a coup from Zulfikar Ali Bhutto in the mid seventies and the trend of destabilization is still in that country totally disrupting the civilian life and the economy. Even at this very moment nobody knows when and where a bomb will go off. The people of this country do not want that kind of situation.”
Earlier remarks by Prime Minister Ratnasiri Wickremanayake that US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had forgotten the “Monica Lewinsky episode” and should “put her house in order” drew a strong protest from the US Government.
Mr. Amad Khan who is Minister of State for Foreign Affairs in Pakistan is a former Army Captain. |
E-mail