ISLAMABAD, Aug 24 (INP) Former foreign minister, Hina Rabbani Khar, has said the US has thrown the entire blame of their failure in Afghanistan on Pakistan. In an interview with a private TV, Khar said Pakistan has to preserve its own national interest first. Referring to Admiral (retd) Mike Mullen’s comments a few years ago wherein he had said Pakistan is either incompetent or complicit in the war on terror, she said “I remember we had gone to the United Nations Security Council session in New York when the statement was made”. She recalled that they had responded with a stern reply, stating that US will lose an ally if it continues to act in this way. “It created a storm but one can’t sit idle in such situations,” she said, imploring the present government to respond to America’s ‘naked threat’ and called it “short of declaring us a terrorist state”. The Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) leader claimed that had the country engaged with the US, things would not have come to this point. “Trump’s statement is a breakdown of contact and the bilateral relationship,” she commented. Laying out some suggestions for the present government, Khar said at this point Pakistan needs closed-door, intense engagement with the US. “Such a statement can be delivered behind closed doors but using such harsh language publically shows the failure of the relationship,” she argued. Had this government worked hard on implementing the National Action Plan, we may not have seen such a statement from the US, she added. If this was a PPP government, we would have undertaken an intense engagement with the US and given a reply as severe as the one emanating from US, she claimed further. INP/AH