Defense News - Pakistani foreign minister comments on today's suicide bomb attack in Islamabad at Rice University speech

Category: Investment, Defense

HOUSTON – October 5, 2009 – During an already-scheduled speech at Rice University's Baker Institute for Public Policy today, Pakistani Foreign Minister Makhdoom Shah Mahmood Qureshi commented on the deadly suicide attack that killed five people at the World Food Program headquarters in Islamabad this morning. Please credit Rice University's Baker Institute when appropriate.

Audio: http://www.rice.edu/nationalmedia/multimedia/qureshi.mp3

Transcript of audio:

[Speaking about Pakistani people and attitudes towards terrorists]

"But today when they see suicide bombings -- and we had one this morning where five innocent lives were lost, five innocent lives and four of them were of Pakistani nationals. Today when people see that there are innocent people dying, when they see all the major urban centers of Pakistan being hit, when they see that the economy of Pakistan has suffered and job creation and investment have been compromised because of these extremists, I think the public opinion has changed.

"When they see girls' schools being bombed, when they see people trying to impose their way of life on us, which is different, their interpretation of Islam is quite different from ours, then I think civil society has woken up. Today, the government has built a new partnership with civil society, and we have successfully built a consensus against extremism and militancy inside parliament and outside parliament. There is almost a consensus in Pakistan that an immediate priority is to take the terrorists on and to fight this. This was never realized as a challenge. It was never realized as a threat. Today there is a greater awareness and recognition of this threat and challenge."

David Ruth
Associate Director for National Media Relations
Rice University

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