By IANS,
Islamabad : Pakistan spends on three soldiers what India spends on only one soldier, army chief General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani has said here.
During the briefing of defence committees of the two houses of parliament at General Headquarters Tuesday, the general said up to 75 percent of the defence services allocation was spent on salary and rations of the personnel and just 25 percent on “everything else”.
The briefing took place amid tension over the massing of heavily-armed US and NATO troops at the Afghanistan-Pakistan border.
The Pakistan Army chief denied that defence spending had been going up over the years, reported Dawn.
He said that in 2001 defence spending was 4.6 percent of the GDP while it had now gone down to 2.4 percent of the GDP.
When a parliamentarian asked him on why did former US military chief Admiral Mike Mullen “stab him in the back” by levelling serious allegations against the army, the general replied: “Friendship does not matter in such issues.”
“(Mike) Mullen did what he thought was in the interest of the United States and I will do what I think is in Pakistan’s interest.”