Sada-e-Watan Sydney ™
sadaewatan@gmail.com
Philip Ruddock & Prime Minister of Pakistan
Australian Attorney General Philip Ruddock is Visiting Pakistan
The Attorney General of Australia Mr. Philip Ruddock has started his official visit to Pakistan for four days from Monday 15th January 2007. According to information provided to Sada-e-Watan Sydney by officials of the Government of Pakistan, Mr. Philip Ruddock met with The Prime Minister of Pakistan and other officials in Islamabad.
The Prime Minister of Pakistan Shaukat Aziz said Pakistan values its multifaceted relationship with Australia and is keen to further consolidate cooperation in broad spectrum of areas particularly trade, investment, education, agriculture, agribusiness and livestock. Talking to Philip Ruddock, Attorney General of Australia who called on him at the Prime Minister House, he said the relations between Pakistan and Australia have strengthened as a result of the growing bilateral interaction between the top leadership of the two countries.
Shaukat Aziz said Pakistan is keen to sign extradition treaty with Australia. He said Pakistan is also positively considering the Australian proposal to sign agreement on mutual legal assistance in criminal matters. The Prime Minister said that Pakistan is against terrorism in all its forms and fighting against it out of conviction, in its own national interest and for maintaining peace and stability across the world. Mr. Shaukat Aziz emphasised the need to address the root causes of terrorism to eradicate this scourge adding that terrorism stems from a feeling of deprivation, injustice, lack of opportunities and lack of dispute resolution. He said Pakistan is assisting Afghanistan in its reconstruction process because a strong stable and vibrant Afghanistan is in the best interest of its people, Pakistan, region and the world.
The Prime Minister said Pakistan has taken a number of steps to regulate the movement of people at the Pak-Afghan border, which is long and porous. Pakistan has deployed 80,000 troops to improve security situation in the tribal areas and now weighing various options including fencing and mining of its side of the border with Afghanistan to prevent the movement of extremist elements. He said the international community needs to expedite the process of reconstruction in Afghanistan and more economic opportunities should be created for the people of Afghanistan to discourage extremism and terrorism. This will encourage the Afghan refugees living in Pakistan to return to their homeland, the Prime Minister added. Giving an overview of the economic turnaround achieved by Pakistan, the Prime Minister said, as a result of the broad based reforms introduced by the government during the last seven years in every facet of life, the economic and social landscape of the country has significantly improved. The Prime Minister said per capita income and the size of economy have doubled, poverty has come down from 34-46% in 2001 to 24% in 2006 and all social indicators are moving up.
He thanked the Australian government for the 500 scholarships for Masters and PHD level students and 6.6 million dollar agricultural support programme initiated by Australia for Pakistan.
Mr. Philip Ruddock said Australia attaches importance to its relationship with
Pakistan and desires to further strengthen cooperation between the two
countries. He said Australia wants to sign extraction treaty and agreement for
mutual legal assistance with Pakistan is being worked out with Pakistani
authorities.
