Imran Khan Favours Cooperation With India For Regional Peace

Imran Khan on Monday vowed to make Pakistan an Islamic welfare state as he unveiled his party's manifesto which said the "most viable" policy to ensure peace in the region was to cooperate with India, including on the Kashmir issue within the parameters of the UNSC resolutions.

The 65-year-old cricketer-turned-politician said his Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) has a 100-day plan to meet serious economic and administrative woes faced by the country if his party is voted to power in the July 25 elections.

On the foreign policy and national defence front, the PTI's manifesto said the party would work on a blueprint towards resolving the Kashmir issue within the parameters of the UN Security Council resolutions.

"For lasting peace within our own region, especially with our neighbour India, conflict resolution and the security route to cooperation is the most viable," the manifesto of the party said.

The manifesto said, PTI's guiding principles will be of reciprocity, mutual interests and international norms that will govern Pakistan's relations at the bilateral and multilateral levels.

"We are committed to initiating new policies rooted in Pakistan's priorities, including a conflict resolution approach towards improving our relation with our eastern and western neighbours," it said.

If elected, the PTI's focus will be on moves to expand the existing strategic partnership with China, as well as with the country's other allies in the region, including the newly emerging cooperation with Russia. With the US, reciprocity and mutuality of interest will be the determinants of our relationship, it said.

It promised that the credibility of Pakistan's full spectrum deterrence will be ensured.

The PTI will move substantively on the bilateral strategic dialogue with India encompassing all aspects of the strategic nuclear deterrence so as to prevent a spiraling nuclear arms race in the region.

On combat terrorism, the PTI manifesto said, immediate steps will be taken to reform the criminal judicial system and revise the anti-terror legislations so that it is precise and focused on terrorism.

The PTI "will not allow Pakistan's territory or people, including its armed forces, to be used by any other nation for the promotion of its political ideology or hegemony, for promoting terrorism or for destabilisation of any other state," it said.