ISLAMABAD:

US Chargé d’Affaires Natalie Baker has said Pakistan is a sovereign nation and must safeguard itself from falling into any country’s “debt trap”, stressing that the country should fully implement its privatisation programme and complete the International Monetary Fund’s (IMF) reform agenda to ensure long-term economic stability.

She was speaking informally to journalists at Aiwan-e-Sadr on Sunday, where she had arrived to attend the ceremony in which President Asif Ali Zardari conferred the country’s highest civilian award, Nishan-e-Pakistan, on Jordan’s King Abdullah II.

On a question regarding Pakistan’s close relations with China, Baker said Pakistan was “a free and sovereign country” that could maintain ties with any nation it wished, but must “carefully protect its econo

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