Pakistan 'not prepared to be anyone's scapegoat': PM Abbasi

Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi has insisted that Pakistan "is not prepared to be anyone's scapegoat".

During his address to the 72nd session of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) in New York on Thursday, Abbasi said Pakistan has been consistently active in the war against terrorism and that it has lost more to the cause than any other nation.

Speaking about the issue of terrorism and the Afghan conflict, the premier said that Pakistan had sacrificed a lot of lives in the war on terror, and nobody desired peace in Afghanistan more than Pakistan.

"Our counter-terrorism credentials cannot be questioned. We have lost 2,700 lives and sustained 50,000 injuries in this war," he said.

"From sixteen years of the ongoing war in Afghanistan, it is clear that peace could not be restored by the continuing resort to military force. Neither Kabul and the coalition nor the Afghan Taliban can impose military solution on each other."

"Apart from Afghanistan, Pakistan and its people have suffered the most from four decades of foreign intervention and civil wars in Afghanistan," he added.

Prime Minister Abbasi further said, "Galling for Pakistan to be blamed for military and political stalemate in Afghanistan. We are not prepared to be anyone's scapegoat."

During his 20-minute speech, Abbasi stated that Taliban safe havens are located not in Pakistan but in large tracts of territory controlled by the Taliban in Afghanistan.

"Cross-border attacks do occur; these are mostly conducted by anti-Pakistan terrorist from safe haven across the border. To end all cross-border attacks we ask the Afghan Government to support and compliment Pakistan's ongoing efforts to strengthen border controls and monitor all movement across it," he said.

The Pakistan Prime Minister also maintained that Islamabad was not prepared to fight the Afghan war on Pakistan's soil.

"Neither can we endorse any fair strategy that prolongs and intensify the sufferings of the people of Afghanistan and Pakistan," he said.

He also identified two flaws in the global counter-terror strategy. One of this, Abbasi remarked, was state sponsored terrorism, and the failure of the UN to reign in states that use this as an instrument of their foreign policy.