LAHORE: Pakistan Muslim League-N president Nawaz Sharif says if voted to power his party will not tolerate drone attacks on Pakistani soil.

“Drone attacks are against the national sovereignty and a challenge for the country’s autonomy and independence. Therefore, we won’t tolerate these attacks in our territorial jurisdictions,” he told a press conference while presenting PML-N’s election manifesto here on Thursday.

To a query, he supported the incumbent government’s decisions of handing over Gwadar port to China and signing of a gas supply project with Iran, arguing the country was presently in isolation and it needed links with the outside world (through such projects).

About the Pakistan-Iran gas pipeline, he said if the country direly needed gas supplies, it had every right to meet its needs from wherever it could, notwithstanding likely economic sanctions by certain powers.

He recalled the country had successfully faced such sanctions when his government had first detonated nuclear bomb, rejecting international pressure and threats of sanctions in May 1998.

Replying to a question about extension in service to armed forces chiefs or superior courts judges, he said he had learnt a lesson from bitter past experience and onwards the senior most officer would be appointed to the post if no serious shortcoming was found (in the person).

The former prime minister told a questioner that as the parliament had the right to scan, alter if needed and pass budget for all sectors, the defence budget too would be put before the elected representatives. The parliament should also have a key role in fighting terrorism, he added.

The PML-N manifesto also proposes a parliamentary oversight on intelligence agencies.