Pak PM Abbasi calls US financial assistance 'insignificant'

Pakistan's Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi on Saturday said financial assistance from the United States is 'very insignificant' and that Islamabad was 'on the forefront of the war on terror'.

In an interview , Abbasi said that reports about the US was considering cuts of up to $2 billion in security assistance were bewildering because of the total aid Pakistan civilian and military actually received was a tiny fraction of that amount.

'The aid in the last five years at least has been



less than $10 million a year. It is a very, very insignificant amount. So when I read in the paper that aid at the level of $250 million or 500 or 900 has been cut, we at least are not aware of that aid,'he said.

The US Agency for International Development, claimed that the US gave USD 778 million to Pakistan in assistance in 2016, of which 35 per cent was military and the rest economic.

Abbasi also rejected President Trump's charge of duplicity in the fight against terrorism.