ISLAMABAD: Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi has said that Kerry-Lugar Bill serves Pakistan’s interests by promoting country’s relations with the sole superpower, which holds its influence on all the international financial institutions, the UN and other organizations and their policies.

Talking to a private television channel late Wednesday night the Minister said that the challenges that Pakistan was facing at present also necessitates cordial relationship with America.

He said the KLB now stands part of the US legislation after it was unanimously adopted by the Congress.The US President while signing this bill had stated that US wants a long term partnership with Pakistan and it was under this intention the US has allocated an amount of Rs.7.5 billion from the tax payers money for the socio-economic development of Pakistan.

Qureshi said that earlier when this bill had been adopted by the Congress it was criticized in Pakistan and then the leadership of the country designated him to convey all these reservations to the US leadership.

“I then raised these concerns there and made them sign a document, which interprets this law. It shows the intent of the US Congress”, Qureshi said adding he has produced that document before the political and military leadership of the country, and has explained it before both the Houses of the Parliament.

Responding to a question with regard to Iran’s concerns in the wake of suicide bombing there the Minister said, one needs to look into the background of Pakistan’s relationship with Iran. During the previous dictatorial regime our relations with Iran were put on the back burner as the then government was fearful that while getting close to Iran they could face the wrath of the Americans. After the restoration of democratic order, the elected government re-analyzed the situation and decided to improve the mutual ties between the two countries.

The Minister said that the President and he himself paid visits to Tehran. Pakistan did not back out from the international gas pipeline project like Indian and a process of trilateral dialogue.

“We also told America that Iran is our neighbor having its boundaries with Afghanistan as well, and Pakistan cannot dissociate itself from Iran”, he said.

He said the Iranian leadership was perturbed about ‘Jandullah’, and after having heard their reservations Pakistan government dispatched its intelligence chief as well as the Interior Minister to Tehran adding “ we even arrested and handed over their wanted men. We had also arrested Abdullah Raigi the brother of Abdul Malik Raigi, who is much talked about these days. Now we are telling them that we are prepared to cooperate even further after this unfortunate incident”.

Asked why the finger is raised only against Pakistan when such unfortunate incident takes place in India, Afghanistan or Iran the Minister said, one would have to explore the entire history of these issues. It didn’t happen overnight. It is related to our history of at least three decades. There are many think tanks who claim that the epicenter of terrorism lies in Pakistan.

“Whatever we deem ourselves is another issue but we have to focus our attention on the international perception about us. We have to live in this world and have to interact with the international community. We would have to locate a room for us in this global village and would have to improve our image”, he added.

He said that during the past one and a half year the Pakistan’s leadership had tried to improve its relations with Afghanistan and eased an era of tension with Karzai and Afghan administration. It had also tried to promote the relations with Iran and China which is a friend of all the times. The country was trying to improve its relations with India but this effort was marred due to the incidents of terrorism in Mumbai.

Asked had the government initiated some back door diplomatic contacts with India so that if some non-state actor goes on the rampage and stags another incident like that of Mumbai, the situation couldn’t go out of control the Minister said, “ having the same concerns in mind we are trying to resume the dialogue process with India. I made the same point during my meeting with Mr.Krishna the Indian Minister for External Affairs on September 27 in New York and I told him that we are getting affected by terrorism every day, the terrorism is a common challenge and we should not get into the blame game and that for our peaceful co-existence we are required to get back to the peace process”.

To a question about the reports of India’s involvement in Balochistan situation the Minister said “We have “certain things” with us in this regard and we have shared them ‘with few entities’ and we want to get it settled through the diplomatic channel. It is so easy to talk through media, but we would have to analyze the things in the global perspective, and in that perspective we would have to avoid confrontation. It would not be in our interests to get involved in an open quarrel with India”.

To another question he said the aid worth $ 7.5 billion pledged to Pakistan under Kerry Lugar Bill is only the economic aid, therefore question doesn’t arise that economic aid is used for the military purposes.