Pakistan facing triple crisis, says Khalilzad

KABUL (Pajhwok): Former US Special Envoy for Afghanistan Peace Process Zalmay Khalilzad has said that Pakistan was facing deep economic, political and security crisis.

On his twitter handle Khalilzad wrote: “Pakistan faces a triple crisis: political, economic, and security. Despite great potential, it is underperforming and falling far behind its archrival, India. It is time for serious soul-searching, bold thinking, and strategizing.”

The former US envoy said: “The sequential cannibalising of its (Pakistan’s) leaders through jailing, execution, assassination, etc is the wrong path,” Khalilzad said, adding that arresting PTI chief Imran would only “deepen the crisis”.

He proposed “two steps” to deal with the country’s challenges, the first being to set a date for general elections in early June to “avert a meltdown”.

Secondly, he called for using this time for the main political parties to “confront what has gone wrong and propose a specific plan to rescue and put the country on a path to stability, security, and prosperity”.

“Whichever party wins the election will have a mandate from the people on what must be done,” he said.

Khalilzad tweets comes at a time when security forces in Pakistan have launched operation from the past two days to arrest former Prime Minister Imran Khan upon court order.

Khan’s supporter showed strong resistance and did not allow law enforcement officials to capture Imran Khan.

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