Meeting Trump will be a 'bitter pill to swallow', says Imran

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf Chairman Imran Khan has said that meeting US President Donald Trump would be a "bitter pill" to swallow for him if he becomes Pakistan's prime minister after general elections scheduled in 2018, however, he would meet him.

Responding to a question during a press briefing on Saturday, Khan said he has been a strong opponent of Pakistan's participation in the war on terror following the 9/11 attacks on the US. "Pakistan had nothing to do with it," he said

He remarked that though he supported co-operation with the United States but not the involvement of Pakistan's military into a ground battle with its own people in the tribal regions.

Khan said that Trump scapegoated Pakistan for the US-led coalition's failure to defeat the Taliban and bring peace to Afghanistan, and that "it was very insulting of him."

The PTI leader added that the US dishonours the memory of thousands of Pakistan's soldiers who died battling insurgents in its tribal regions, as well as that of tens of thousands of Pakistanis who died in terrorist attacks.

"The way the United States has treated Pakistan as a doormat is not fair," he said.

Khan said he was committed to mainstreaming tens of thousands of madrassas in the country.

He said he wants graduates of religious seminaries to have skills that will allow them to find jobs across all sectors. "As it stands, madrassa graduates are ill-equipped to work as anything other than clerics or prayer leaders," he added.

"We will train their teachers to bring them into the mainstream," he said, without providing details on how that would be accomplished.