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| November 17, 2001 | Saturday | Ramazan 1, 1422 |
‘Tilt towards West not to affect ties with China’
BEIJING, Nov 16: Sino-Pakistan relations will not be affected by Pakistan’s joining of the US-led anti-terrorism coalition and its improved ties with the West, said Pakistan ambassador to China Riaz Khokhar.
In an interview with China Daily published on Friday, he said: “China would continue to enjoy the highest priority in Pakistan’s foreign policy.” He added: “We will never allow this relationship to be affected by our relations with US or any other country.”
“It is a problem-free model interaction in international relations between two countries with different social, political and economic systems,” the ambassador said.
History has proved that Pakistan can maintain good relations with China and the West simultaneously,” he said adding that the early contacts in the normalization of Sino-US relations were facilitated by Pakistan.
Mr Khokhar also referred to the forthcoming visit of President Pervaiz Musharraf to China and said: “the purpose of the visit is to pay tribute to our five-decade-long fruitful and mutually beneficial relations and to strengthen it further, as we enter the 21st century.”
Commenting on the future of a post-Taliban Afghanistan, Mr Khokhar said: “Pakistan believes that peace in Afghanistan can be achieved through the establishment of a broad-based government in which all ethnic groups are represented as per their demographic composition.”
The United States has suggested that its military strikes could possibly be expanded to other countries that support terrorism. Pakistan also considered the attitudes of Russia and China, both of which have pledged their support for the anti-terrorism campaign, he added.
The ambassador assured that there was absolutely no question of a shift in Pakistan’s foreign policy. Pakistan-China relations, the ambassador added are deep-rooted and time-tested which have successfully weathered all vicissitudes in the international environment over the past 50 years.—APP
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