Commenting on Donald Trump’s visa ban on seven Muslim countries, Interior Minister said this would only strengthen terrorists’ agenda and harm innocent people.Answering a question regarding visa restrictions imposed by United States on some Muslim countries, Chaudhary Nisar said it was wrong to link Islam with terrorism and added 1.5 billion Muslims live peacefully in the world, however, a handful of wayward people were negating the teachings of Islam.An executive order signed by Trump suspended the arrival of all refugees for a minimum of 120 days, Syrian refugees indefinitely and bars citizens from Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen for 90 days.He said the worst sufferers of terrorism were Muslims and they had given the most sacrifices against this scourge.The minister observed that visa restrictions imposed by the US would not affect terrorists but cause difficulties for victims of terrorism.Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf Chairman Imran Khan, while condemning the plight of Muslims prevented from entering the United States (US), hoped that the ban is extended to Pakistanis.The PTI chief said most educated Pakistanis want to leave this country because they think they can only acquire gainful employment if they have a powerful source, and said he believes that things in Pakistan can only improve if people work for progress. He said that the day we bring back the merit system back to Pakistan, all our best citizens will return and work for the betterment of this country.Khan said the day there is a government that decides it has to live and die in Pakistan, it will fix this country.Lambasting Nawaz, he said, the PM had taken money from Pakistan and spent it abroad. He said that his businesses were abroad, his children were abroad, but he was the Prime Minister of Pakistan. He even goes abroad for checkups.Khan lauded Iran’s tit-for-tat move in response to Trump’s immigration ban, which restricted US nationals travelling to Iran until the ban was lifted.Denial of visas to citizens from seven Muslim countries is apparently under serious consideration. Pakistan will also come under the microscope sooner or later. If recent hints by the Republican Congress are anything to go by, there will be considerable tightening of the screws at least as far as cooperation in winding up the war against terrorism is concerned. From the looks of things, Pakistan’s policy of ambiguity regarding some of the players in the Afghan endgame will have to finally come to an end.Amid all of this, alarm bells would be ringing in Pakistan, and rightly so. The new US president seems to be a man who will do what is necessary in order to put America above and over everything else, or at least according to what he thinks is in the American national interest. Here, Pakistan’s strategic importance would militate against any firm move on the part of the US president that might endanger Pakistan-US ties.
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