Rawalpindi: The Chinese government has acceded to Pakistan’s request to take over the operations at Gawadar Port as soon the term of agreement with the incumbent Singapore Port Authority expires. This was stated by Federal Minister for Defence, Ch. Ahmad Mukhtar after completing his visit to China with the Prime Minister of Pakistan. China is an all-weather friend and the closest ally of Pakistan, and it could be judged from the fact that in which ever sectors Pakistan requested assistance during P.M’s recent visit to China, they immediately agreed with Pakistan, he stated further. Ch. Ahmad Mukhtar stated that during their meeting with the Prime Minister of China, Wen Jia Bao, he, being the Defence Minister of Pakistan, raised and discussed some important strategic and economic issues.
Pakistan considers that peaceful and stable Afghanistan is in the interest of Pakistan and the whole region. Pakistan supports a stable government in Kabul which shall be Afghan owned.
Pakistan requested for frigates of 4400 tons on credit basis. We also expressed the desire that the Chinese government could train our personnel on submarines.
The Minister further stated that they are grateful to Chinese government for constructing Gwadar Port. However, we would be more grateful to the Chinese government if a naval base is being constructed at the site of Gwadar for Pakistan.
The Prime Minister of Pakistan told his Chinese counterpart that their program of JF-17 Thunder Aircrafts is going on successfully, but it would be a pleasure for us if the PLA (Peoples Liberation Army) would induct the aircrafts in their Air fleet. This would give us a lot of publicity to our aircrafts and we would be able to sell a larger quantity of the Aircrafts to bring down the cost. The Chinese government subscribed to our request to equip our Air Force with FC-20 Aircrafts.
The Chinese Premier was pleased to discuss that his government would help us in repairing Atta bad Lake and KKH road, once the clarification regarding these projects are being received to the Chinese government.
We agreed on the point that stability had to be achieved in the region by the joint efforts of both Pakistan and China and by defeating the terrorists in the region. At this point Pakistan asked China that a message may be conveyed to the US government that Pakistan’s sovereignty should be respected. The Chinese government assured that they would help us to remove all the bottlenecks coming in the way of our prosperity.
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