Joining US in war against terrorism "one of the biggest blunder": Pakistan

Washington : Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan has said that his country joining the United States in its war against terrorism after the deadly 9/11 twin tower attack was the biggest blunder they did in the past.

“Pakistan by joining the US after 9/11 committed one of the biggest blunders. 70,000 Pakistanis died in this. Some economists say we had 150 billion, some say 200 billion loss to the economy. On top of it, we were blamed for the US not winning in Afghanistan,” he said at an event at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) think tank in New York on Monday, reports IANS.

He also claimed that the groups which were trained to fight soviet resistance in Afghanistan in the 1980s were framed as the terrorists by the US.

“They (the insurgent groups) were indoctrinated that fighting foreign occupation is ‘jihad.’ But now when the US arrived in Afghanistan, it was supposed to be terrorism,” he said.

“The Pakistani army, ISI trained al Qaeda and all these groups to fight in Afghanistan, there were always links, there had to be links because they trained them,” Imran Khan said when asked if there was a Pakistani probe to find out how Osama bin Laden was living in Abbottabad.

"When we did a 180 degree turn and went after those groups, not everyone agreed with us, within the army people did not agree with us, so there were insider attacks in Pakistan," he said.

”It’s a humanitarian issue. If you were to meet him (Modi) now, I would have asked to at least lift the siege.

“I honestly feel that this crisis would get worse,” he said.