there's nowhere to hide let me ask you straight out here is the two state solution now from britain on al-jazeera. to. see. pakistan has a new government and a new prime minister in run but already there's a rocky start to relations with two key countries india and the united states how will the country's new leadership reshape its foreign policy we speak to the new foreign minister sharma mood correct she's been here at the un general assembly in new york about his options for the world and the region here on talk to al jazeera . sharma mood correct chief foreign minister of pakistan thank you for speaking to al-jazeera it's not been long since you've become foreign

minister again let me ask you about the challenges of this moment a brand new administration and yet this time it's a political party that's never governed before and a prime minister has never held political office before what are the challenges of that and what possibly are the advantages to but there are challenges and there are expectations as well of the challenges are that the economy is not in really good shape. institutions that. deliver the lot of them have been compromised corruption. was on the rise and. people. and stack money abroad. people who lost faith in institutions. to restore confidence. is a big challenge to restore the economy the big challenge to reform institutions

is a big challenge in iran harming they feel we have a person who enjoys credibility reputation and he is a figure of a national a national hero. and they feel. when he when he decides to do something it delivers what do you say to those that claim there is a deep state in pakistan and pakistan that deep state wears a uniform and it's the army that this time around decided to back iran that's an allegation that's been made of some of your party's opponents some by some who've studied the election which some have said pope probably wasn't a completely fair playing field that was the initial verdict of the of how do how do you justify your failure you have to blame someone he beat

what is what are the international observers who were there what did they say. but there have been perform the commonwealth the people in the european union and the observed entire process and gave an opinion and opinion was elections were free fair and credible one of the problems you face now is you've made a lot of promises but you don't have a huge majority that makes things a little difficult doesn't it it does it does to an extent that. foliage station we need a majority and we do not have a majority in the senate right now so what we need to do is. build consensus and hopefully a. couple of years down the line. we will have. re run for

the senate and hopefully at the numbers will change your party's only been in power for a short period so it is very early days but first impressions count it's fair to say that been a few stumbles haven't for example selling off the government cars you raised not as much money the government as it hoped to raised only about a tenth of the amount of money that you hope to raise and there's been some ridicule that the prime minister after doing that travels around by helicopter. to begin with. selling cars was not generating money it was conveying a message and a message was a strategy the message was to live within your means travelling by helicopter was an extravagance it was a sea security requirement and if you calculate if you do peut. if you look at the people to provide for security if you look at the inconvenience caused to

public you know when you stop reference a fact that ultimately that's a better option to do and it doesn't happen every day it's just once a week and of course one of the leaders that you served in the past benazir bhutto was killed while travelling the streets of pakistan before we move on to some of the foreign challenges to just revisit that for a moment do you now think you know who killed well do you have your suspicions. let the party that i used to be in speak for that. they claim they know it but they don't share it so i will. let them speak for who can it's unfortunate the way she went. she could have contributed significantly to the country. quite

a dynamic personality. it's unfortunate we lost her let's move to relations with america and if you don't mind i'm going to start where you left when you were last foreign minister because you resigned and you resigned over the decision to let a cia contractor who shot two men in lahore not be prosecuted can you explain go back there and say why you found that incident so wrong what they were claiming he was not they wanted. diplomatic immunity or to promote what they were asking for was unfair and. all of us saying the documents do not. justify what you demanding saw the pollution i took later. i was going to catered he was

not a diplomat but do you think it shows something about the way the us has been treating pakistan over the last seventeen years since nine eleven we understand why they gauge themself in the region but did they respect pakistan's sovereignty chewing that period but history tells us that palls a fair height look at things differently their behavior is different and. the u.s. being a global par the expect. special treatment the relationship between pakistan and the u.s. i think you probably would agree has been for a long time somewhat complicated but it seems to be particularly strained since

president trump took office he put out a tweet in january the united states has foolishly given pakistan more than thirty three billion dollars in aid of the last fifteen years and they've given us nothing but lies and deceit that is a difficult thing now a future of pat does he have a point that i think. if he had. seen what pakistan has done. if he had. traveled to that area and the region and seen the challenges that we face and he faced fighting. terrorism. the sacrifies the human loss the economic sacrifice he could have perhaps

appreciated. and be more sensitive to some of our concerns. we have we have moved on we've recognized the challenge and we've contributed to safety mainland usa today is safe because many of our youngsters and officers and soldiers sacrifice themselves absolutely true huge numbers of casualties but there are some who claim that some in your army some in your intelligence the i.s.i. were playing a double game they were helping the taliban they were they were helping some of bin ladin. troops they were helping their own country they were helping. overcome a situation which was not of their creation. who were these people

who supported them who trained them you forget history and a time if you overlook that prince change people that you. support some of the people who are called extremists want to be invited to the u.s. won't they entertained. in the white house so friends change circumstances change we were just defending and protecting ourselves we we've undertaken. operations in the country. to cleanse ourselves form elements that were not friendly or creating.

situations for pakistan and beyond where are these your friends in the past i mean it's called the quests are sure of the taliban command that is in a city in pakistan quitter asama bin laden was killed in pakistan omar was killed in pakistan were you in the past treating them as friends and giving them a safe haven and what's your new government's policy now well. a policy is very clear we do not want safe havens. and what we've gone through we've. undertaken a very serious. effort to cleanse ourselves and to clear the areas the different operations that the army has. undertaken have clear various areas. unthinkable law fizzing

you can come and travel there you can come and see for yourself see how life has returned our people have gone back. there are sports activities taking place schools are being rebuilt an area that where at one stage it was felt that the roots of the government doesn't exist in those with those very areas have now been merged with the keep the province. look at the areas that were governed under the law are now being governed by similar laws they have been brought into the mainstream do you think the timing of that was unfortunate you had the trumpet ministration coming into power not really initially focusing much on building foreign relationships it took

a long time because they i think frankly didn't expect to be elected to a long time for them to reach out to people around the world and at the same time by the time they were getting to know countries around the world you had the prime minister nawaz sharif removed from power it seems to be a rather unfortunate set of timing is that when you could have reached out to the trumpet ministration you sort of had a cat take it type administration in place until the elections that have brought your party to power. no washee was not taken out of power. there was a supreme court judgment. he was held accountable. and nobody to about even when he left. but he was convicted the party continued the party was still in office the prime minister who succeeded him was his

hand-picked prime minister. the ministers of the same one job the largest province of the country had his brother governing that province but i'm what i'm saying is you don't think because of all the while you happened the relationship with the us got neglected by the previous government of the people's government for four and a half years had no foreign minister. what was stopping them you know minister was doing the job as well wasn't it well you see prime minister prime minister supposedly was doing the job but prime minister the prime ministers and they have so much on their plate they cannot focus on on. events that are of that require immediate attention so a lot of things were ignored and a lot of relationships got affected and one of those is the us relationship you've told me how things have changed but president trump hasn't got the message congress

hasn't got the message the pentagon hasn't got the message congress has withdrawn five hundred million dollars in aid funds the pentagon's cut council three hundred million dollars in military assistance how do you get the message to washington we're one month old takes time. to gauge what. the only high level interaction we've had is just one meeting for the security of state where in thirty pompey o visited islamabad now or on its way to tele. that was the first engagement that this government had and i think it was a good beating the conversation that he had with the prime minister on telephone was a good conversation and the meeting he had with me and then with the leadership the civil and the military leadership i was part of that was very encouraging and the

fact that he is going to meet me on the second in washington. shows that. they're thinking of perhaps. revisiting approach to pakistan does pakistan now have other options than just the u.s. relationship can you have russia for example and china where you have a have had a very long friendship but growing toys and growing economic ties do you need the u.s. in the way you perhaps did in the past you want us to be a friends with pakistan we recognize the u.s. is an important global bar and they would continue to be a military technological and economic power in the foreseeable future. while the the they are looking at different options they're looking at new friends in the

region. and. we've do have. friends who've been consistent very valuable china's one of them. the others the others who feel and bricking nice how important how stupid you created pakistan is . and to understand pakistan's importance so. we are not. we're not alone. and everyone has options i know you're not the finance minister you are the foreign minister but he's one of those options alone from the i.m.f. and how do you square if that is an option the words you just said and the words from your prime minister he said we formed a bad habit of living alone zenaida's from other country no country can prosper like this those words mean an i.m.f.

loan is ruled out oh no no no that does not mean that what it means is that we to t. have it can be deleted so mark get. that. sources are exhausted servicing that debt and we need to. we need to do things to frankly but here's. the. financial institutions that bail out countries when they are in a difficult situation and we haven't rule out coming to the i.m.f. . in terms of relations with india early days you and your prime minister have reached out to the indians it seems you have been rebuffed you must be disappointed. what we did

was we thought made sense to me because with the outstanding issues atomic balls how do you fix things war is an option there is no method to solution the only solution is a dialogue and the priority of this government is if you want to fix our internal challenges you want to fix the economy you want. job creation he wants to billet you want peace you want to concentrate on the western side and if you want to concentrate on that western side we want we want ease on the eastern side. so be we ditched out and want to do in keech. and we the prime minister in his first address on the twenty sixth of july and he clearly said to take one step towards peace we would take two. but he clear message

are you disappointed that that initial message was rebuffed or do you think we're already in the indian election cycle i think indian internal domestic politics prevailed. and. the do realize what we're saying makes sense and is a big element within india took a look at the criticism. that the government the indian government is facing from their own people from their intelligencia from their own media and a lot of people think that it was a device decision but that their decision there is no other option if there is an option it's better to out i'd like to end by talking about another of your key neighbors we've already touched on it and that's afghanistan that does now seem to be

a us appetite for talks with the taliban there were some talks there was a brief true story eat how do you see these developments and what do you think should be pakistan's role in this well. prime minister brown hard for a long time has been saying this that there is no military solution to understand the only solution is. a political settlement is an inclusive approach after all taliban are found and if you want peace and stability in a while as far as. the bringing them into the mainstream what you need to do is convince them that violence is not the right way of going about give up bombs. come to the negotiating table and. play your role

in all within the system recognize the constitution and play a role and what model for that would you have because i'm in the afghan government of tried their own talks you had talks last year that took place in pakistan you have a taliban. mission you could call it that in qatar you have the u.s. is own approach you have the russians also making suggestions how do you bring all these efforts together and the second part of my question are you sure the taliban really want to negotiate when they're doing well on the battlefield well i think if there's enough incentive provided by shrewd to negotiate why should they i think they also do realize that things have changed within a one star over the last sixteen seventeen years and they just cannot run

over and just get to kabul and just go and take over the country that's no longer possible so this new realize zation everywhere i think the afghan government. also recognizes and realizes that there are areas where they have considerable amount of influence there are districts that they control. you've got to you've got to recognize that and accept that so this is a new realize. that it's evolving a new convergence that is in the making and that is it's give peace a chance and let's give dialogue and to consideration a chance events since nine eleven in afghanistan have also affected the destiny of pakistan if you could have peace in afghanistan what could it mean for pakistan

whole. a lot stability economic old. employment opportunities and fixing things that have been ignored for a while fixing our internal institutions. changing the way the song has been run where pakistan has been governed. utilizing a resources or. on human development the most valuable asset of the country the people we haven't invested enough in education in build drinking water sort of free product izing things. thank you very much for speaking to our series thank you you thank

. on al-jazeera. in a new season al-jazeera correspondent returns with more personal stories from our journalists from around the world. brazilians are getting ready for elections but the main presidential contender is barred from the polls as he says time in jail for corruption. from the u.s. and beyond faultlines investigates the stories beyond the headlines after a three year delay afghanistan will finally hold its pollen and three elections but what direction the country takes with a new two part series the big picture examines the negativity of mama kentucky's moon and the effects of his demise. on al-jazeera. with jealousy that spoke she just exquisitely she's very glamorous it's part of our culture to

look at our very very best for a special occasion and for people who spend money everything you see on the catwalk they do it. if they are going to be longevity they enjoy role have to come in and tell you things are hours. on al-jazeera. and monday put it on. us and british companies have announced the biggest discovery of natural gas in west africa but what to do with these untapped natural resources is already a source of heated debate nothing much has changed they still spend most of their days looking forward to for dry riverbed like this one five years on the syrians still feel battered for even those who managed to escape their countries haven't truly been able to escape the your. odds. of the

cold. the death toll on the tops eight hundred thirty is indonesians are warned thousands may be dead from the earthquake and tsunami. i'm sami's a than this is al jazeera live from doha also coming up to refute saudi and u.a.e. allegations of supporting terrorism as accusations fly at the u.n. . the changing faces of afghanistan's election more women candidates more by.