LAHORE: Former premier Nawaz Sharif said on Wednesday that it was Pakistan who suffered the most in the war on terrorism after 9/11.
While addressing a press conference at Punjab House, he lashed out at United States President Donald Trump and said that he should know that Pakistan launched operations to counter terrorism after the government was elected. He urged Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi to develop policies to ensure that Pakistan could be self-sufficient without US aid.
Referring to the years of dictatorship that began with a military coup in 1999, he said that had there been an elected government in 2001, it “would not have lost its conscience”.
He further said that this year would be the year of elections when people would choose their representatives in a democratic fashion.
Earlier on Wednesday, he along with his daughter Maryam Nawaz appeared before accountability court in Islamabad as a hearing into three corruption references filed against the Sharifs by the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) began.
The proceedings started after the NAB filed three references against Nawaz and his family in light of the Supreme Court’s (SC) July 28 judgment in the Panama Papers case.
The three references pertain to the Al-Azizia Steel Mills, offshore companies including Flagship Investment Ltd, and London’s Avenfield properties.
Talking to the media after appearing before the court, Nawaz lamented the judiciary treated PTI’s chairman with favortism, referring to his recent ‘clearance’ by the Supreme Court in the disqualification case against him as well his bail in the anti-terrorism cases against him.
