Finance Minister Ishaq Dar on Thursday asserted there would be \u201cno compromise\u201d on the country\u2019s nuclear and missile programmes as he responded to questions raised by PPP Senator Raza Rabbani.
\nSpeaking during the Senate\u2019s session today, Dar said: \u201cLet me assure you that [\u2026] nobody is going to compromise anything on the nuclear or the missile program of Pakistan \u2014 no way.\u201d
\nSenator Rabbani had raised some questions on the reasons behind the delay in the agreement with the International Monetary Fund (IMF), which would offer a critical lifeline to tame a balance-of-payments crisis.
\nThe PPP leader lamented that the Senate had \u201cneither before nor today been taken into confidence on what are the conditionalities of the IMF\u201d.
\nTerming the delay \u201cabsolutely out of the ordinary \u2014 extraordinary\u201d, Senator Rabbani said: \u201cThe question arises [\u2026] if the delay is being made because of some sort of pressure to be exerted on Pakistan\u2019s nuclear [programme].\u201d
\nResponding to him, Dar assured of no compromise on Pakistan\u2019s nuclear prowess and promised that the \u201cmoment the staff-level agreement and the EFFP (Extended Fund Facility programme) would be finalised [\u2026] it will be put up on the website of the finance ministry\u201d.
\nHe added: \u201cNobody has any right to tell Pakistan that what range of missiles it can have and what nuclear weapons it can have. We have to have our own deterrence.
\n\u201cWe represent the people of Pakistan [\u2026] and we have to guard our national interests\u201d.
\nResponding to the questions raised on the delay, Dar said the delay was \u201cnot on the part of the government\u201d. Indirectly blaming the PTI\u2019s government that signed the agreement in 2019, he said that \u201cit seems as if the arrangements of 2019 with the IMF has been a different and [a] new program\u201d.
\nHe added: \u201cIt looks like that each time, the review is a new program which is very uncustomary with the IMF.
\n\u201cIt has been an extensive engagement \u2014 unusual, too lengthy, too long, too demanding \u2014 but we have completed everything.\u201d
\nAsserting that the program \u201cshould have been over by 2022\u201d, the PML-N leader said that the law amendments were passed by \u201cthis very parliament, after which the monetary policy has become too independent, in my opinion\u201d.
\nRevealing one of the reasons behind the delay in the IMF agreement, Dar said: \u201cAt the time of previous reviews, certain friendly countries have made commitments to bilaterally support Pakistan.
\n\u201cBut [the] IMF is now asking that they should actually complete and materialise those commitments. That\u2019s the only delay,\u201d the finance minister told the Senate.
\nOn March 9, Dar had blamed the delay on the previous government, whose \u201cfailure to meet commitments\u201d created a trust deficit that had continued to bite.
\nHowever, he had once again assured the nation that the country was \u201cvery close\u201d to signing the agreement, which would release $1.1 billion that is part of a $6.5bn bailout package the IMF approved in 2019.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Finance Minister Ishaq Dar on Thursday asserted there would be \u201cno compromise\u201d on the country\u2019s nuclear and missile programmes as he responded to questions raised…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5384,"comment_status":"registered_only","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5383","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-latest-news-updates"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5383","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5383"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5383\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/5384"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5383"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5383"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5383"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}