Chairman of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Imran Khan, who is poised to become the country’s next prime minister, delivered a speech on Thursday afternoon in which he laid out the future government's policy on domestic and foreign affairs.
In his speech, Khan touched on Pakistan’s domestic issues mainly reforms, economic development, poverty and corruption and pledged to introduce wide-ranging reforms once he assumes office as prime minister.
Khan also talked about Pakistan’s relations with its neighbors and said that Afghanistan has suffered tremendously due to war and violence over the past few decades and that Pakistan is ready to cooperate in bringing peace in the war-ravaged nation.
"We want to work in every possible way to ensure peace in Afghanistan. I would love an open border system like the EU with Afghanistan. Afghanistan is that neighbor of ours that has seen the most human misery and damage in the name of wars. The people of Afghanistan need peace, and Pakistan wants peace in Afghanistan." Geo News quoted him as saying.
On Pakistan’s foreign affairs issues, Khan stressed that his country wants improved relations with all neighboring countries, including India.
"If India takes one step towards us, we will take two steps towards them. Right now, it is one sided where India is constantly just blaming us," the PTI chief said while inviting India for dialogue, according to Geo News.
"The leadership of Pakistan and India now need to come to the table to resolve this and end blame games. We are stuck at square one," he said.
Imran stressed, "Foreign policy is a huge problem for us as a country right now. We need better relations with our neighbours so we can focus on nation building."
On Pakistan-US relatons Khan said, "We want to work on a policy that is mutually beneficial. Not a one-way relationship as there needs to be balance."
On Pakistan to China, the PTI chief said, "We will strengthen and improve our relations with China. We want to work towards success of CPEC. We also want to send teams to learn poverty alleviation from China."
Core points of Khan’s speech:
• Pakistan ready for dialogue with India
• Wants mutually beneficial relations with India
• Aims to strengthen and improve Pakistan’s bilateral ties with its main ally China
• Will work towards building peace in Afghanistan
• Serious war on corruption
• Unifying the Pakistani people
• Taking bold steps for human development
But, PTI’s opponents including former prime minister Nawaz Sharif’s Pakistan Muslim League (PML-N) party, and the Pakistan Peoples Party Parliamentarian (PPPP) which is led by Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, the son of Pakistan’s former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, have claimed that large scale voter fraud has taken place and that they have strong reservations about the results of the elections.
But Pakistan’s election commission has rejected the allegations as baseless and said that the election was organized in a free and transparent manner.