London/Islamabad: Pakistan has a past with extremist groups and suffered because of this, Pakistan Peoples Party chief Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari said while answering a question on Islamabad backing terror outfits.
Bhutto-Zardari was asked in an interview with Sky News on Thursday whether he agreed with Defence Minister Khwaja Asif’s controversial remark last week. Questioned if Pakistan has been supporting, training and funding terrorists, the minister had then said his country did the West’s “dirty work” for decades.
The Pakistan Peoples Party leader’s remarks come amid heightened tension between India and Pakistan after terrorists killed 26 people, mostly tourists, in Jammu and Kashmir’s Pahalgam on April 22.
Answering the question if he agreed with Asif’s claim, Bhutto-Zardari said, “I don’t think that it’s a secret that Pakistan has a past as far as extremist groups are concerned. And as a result of this, we have suffered. Pakistan has suffered. We’ve gone through wave after wave of extremism. “We went through the Islamisation and militarisation of our society. But as a result of what we suffered, we also learnt our lessons. We’ve gone through internal reforms in order to address this problem, not only for us, but also the concern of the international community,” Bhutto-Zardari, the former foreign minister, said.