Islamabad, Feb 23 (TIWN) Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan has said that the country will no longer be taking sides or playing "camp politics" and will be working towards increasing trade relations with countries to get itself out of poverty.

In an interview to Russia Today, Khan said Pakistan was no longer in a position to take sides in conflicts between two countries, adding that the Cold War ravaged the world in the past. Khan said Pakistan opted to join the US camp because it needed money, especially after the inflow of millions of refugees from Afghanistan, who had migrated from the war torn country and had camped in Pakistan. However, khan insisted that Pakistan should have left the financial reliance on US. "But the country should have left the US camp after a decade or so and pursued an independent policy. Reliance on foreign aid is a curse," he said. "Such aid stops a country from evolving and developing and becoming self-reliant. The reliance on hand-outs stops a country from becoming independent." Khan said it was because of the financial reliance on the US that "Pakistan could not establish trade relations with the Central Asian states because of its proximity to the US and theirs to Soviet Union".