During an interview with Bloomberg Television in Washington DC, Bilawal Bhutto Zardari said, Muslims in India are being tortured by Narendra Modi’s party and added that the Indian government is committing extreme atrocities in Gujarat.
“Modi’s party BJP has announced a bounty on my head which proves that what I had said was right.”
Talking about Pakistan’s economic crisis, the foreign minister urged the world to continue to help the South Asian nation recover from devastating floods ahead of a United Nations conference next month to mobilize funding.
“We find ourselves in this incredibly difficult position where we’re trying to manage our macroeconomic indicators with the IMF and provide the imminent relief for the people that is still necessary now in Pakistan, and plan forward for reconstruction and rehabilitation,” Bialwal said.
“Unfortunately, the cameras have gone, the attention has disappeared, but there are still floodwaters in many areas of my country.”
Pakistan’s unprecedented floods in the summer killed more than 1,700 people, inundated third of the nation and cut the nation’s growth by half. The floods have left about $32 billion in damages and losses to the nation’s economy.
Pakistan has seen a delay in its latest IMF loan tranche amid prolonged discussions with the global body, which has asked for details on how much the nation will be spending this year for rehabilitation after the devastating floods. The IMF indicated that talks have been productive to revise the macroeconomic outlook after the floods, a resident representative in Pakistan Esther Perez Ruiz said in a statement this month.
“The entire unity government agrees that it’s important for us to deal with international financial institutions — we want to see the fundamental reform that’s required for the overall health of our economy,” Bilawal said. “But at the moment, our number one priority has to be helping these people who are in extreme, extreme distress in the short, medium and long term.”
Talking about the political uncertainty as Imran Khan planning to dissolve two of the four provincial assemblies later this week to push the government to announce fresh elections, Bilawal said, “It should have been not just my priority, but everybody’s a priority to step up, to leave partisan politics aside and unite to meet this challenge,” the foreign minister said. “Unfortunately, Mr. Khan has been throwing an eight-month tantrum that he has not been prime minister.”
