ISLAMABAD: Pakistan has rejected a Financial Times report suggesting it offered to the United States a base at the Arabian Sea port of Pasni, calling the claim “entirely baseless” and the result of “private speculation confused with state policy.”
“There is no truth to the claim that Pakistan has offered any port to the United States. No such proposal was ever made by the Government of Pakistan or discussed by the Army Chief in any official forum,” a senior Pakistani military official told We News English.
The official said the FT report appeared to conflate private commercial ideas with actual government policy. “What the article refers to are speculative ideas floated by private entrepreneurial individuals who are neither official advisers nor representatives of the state,” the official added.
He further underlined that Pakistan’s policies remain sovereign and independent: “Financial Times story clearly confuses private entrepreneurial enthusiasm with state policy, a mistake that is unfortunate but not unusual when geopolitics meets imagination,”.
Islamabad stressed that while private investors may float business schemes, Pakistan’s military and government had not made, nor authorized, any offer to Washington.
The Financial Times report, published on October 4, claimed advisers to Army Chief Gen Asim Munir had approached US officials with a plan to develop Pasni into a port giving Washington a foothold in the Arabian Sea. Pakistan has categorically denied the news story.