ISLAMABAD: Unlike other Pakistani leaders and institutions, Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan offered most comprehensive, explicit and a kind of no-holds-barred reaction to the killing of Afghan Taliban chief Mulla Mansoor in a US predator strike on Pakistan’s soil, presenting the official policy in clear-cut terms.
Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif was the first one to give his response to the episode after he landed in London for review of treatment of his heart ailment the day it surfaced. The reaction of the Pakistan Foreign Office was couched in diplomatic language as it has generally been.
Special Assistant to the Prime Minister Tariq Fatemi is believed to have conveyed to US Ambassador to Islamabad David Hale Pakistan’s disapproval of the drone attack in the usual soft and tactical tone during their meeting at the foreign ministry.
While expressing his serious concerns over the drone strike in Naushki, Balochistan, Chief of Army Staff General Raheel Sharif told Ambassador Hale that such acts of sovereignty violations are detrimental to relations between Pakistan and the US and are counterproductive for ongoing peace process for regional stability, and Islamabad’s efforts, successes and sacrifices in fight against terrorism have been unparalleled.
However, the most sweeping rejoinder came from the interior minister, which exposed duplicity and contradictions in the American policy. Among several other pertinent points he raised in his presser, he also underlined that Mulla Mansour was not hindering the Afghan peace process as claimed by Washington and it was not understandable why he was not a threat to the US during his presence in Afghanistan. “While the US government claimed that Mansour was targeted because he was against the peace process, did they forget that when the Taliban and Afghan government met for talks in Murree, it was Mansour who was leading the group?”
Obviously, it was in Washington’s knowledge. Despite that, the US killed him, which demonstrated its aversion to the peace process in which Pakistan played a key role to rid Afghanistan of continuing mayhem.
There is no denying that what Chaudhry Nisar extensively expounded was duly discussed and approved by the prime minister and other key state institutions. Since others observed restraint for their own reasons, he showed he was under no compulsion to follow the suit.
He correctly stated that the Afghan peace process was a clear casualty of the predator assault as Pakistan was seeing some hope but this incident occurred, sabotaging it. The killing pushed Pakistan in a difficult situation. This was what the drone attack intended to achieve.
Chaudhry Nisar is the first leader, who disclosed that Islamabad was informed seven hours after the “totally illegal, unacceptable and against the sovereignty and integrity of Pakistan” drone strike, and the US leadership had not taken Islamabad into confidence ahead of targeting the vehicle. He thus referred to US Secretary of State John Kerry’s telephonic talk with the prime minister and the army chief.
Although on Nawaz Sharif return to Pakistan from Britain, a high level security committee comprising top military leadership is likely to be held to mull over the situation arising out of the drone attack, Chaudhry Nisar has already amply illustrated Islamabad’s anguish and stand from different angles. But still the civ-mil leaders need to speak with one voice on this grave assault, which took place after a long time, as well as President Barak Obama’s threat that Washington would also strike any Pakistani area for the same purpose.
On the fourth day, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Chairman Imran Khan came out with his first-ever comment on the drone strike and described it as an attack on the sovereignty of the country. He did not lose the opportunity to take on the prime minister when he said that the government is willing for any ‘compromise’ to stay in power. He described the hit as a failure of the government and stated that in his opposition days, Nawaz Sharif used to talk tall against such strikes.
While PTI chief now took four days to offer his comments on the strike, there was a time when his party had staged a sit-in near Peshawar against drone attacks for days in order to block NATO supplies to Afghanistan via Pakistan.
Imran Khan lavishly uses the micro-blogging media, Twitter, to articulate his views on all burning issues. But in the instant case, he did not post even a single tweet to denounce the predator strike for his own reasons.
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