Pakistan’s inclusion in Saudi-led coalition under fire in Senate

Sartaj says final agreement will be shared with parliament

ISLAMABAD: Adviser to Prime Minister on Foreign Affairs Sartaj Aziz told the Senate on Monday that no decision had been made yet on Pakistan’s role in the 34-member Saudi-led military alliance, as consultations were underway on what activity Islamabad would take part in.

The adviser promised to share with parliament the role of Pakistan presently being discussed. Sartaj Aziz faced a volley of probing questions from Senate Chairman Raza Rabbani and senators belonging to the treasury and opposition benches, who strongly objected to ignoring the legislature on this very important matter.

The opposition questioned why parliament had been left out on this major policy decision, involving 34 countries while on the option of sending or otherwise of Pak troops to Yemen, the legislature remained in session for a full week.

Rabbani questioned how Pakistan became a part of the military alliance without referring it to  parliament and why the four countries, already engaged in fighting Daish, had been left out. When Sartaj Aziz pointed out that 34 other countries had also joined it, Rabbani said that they were asking why without informing parliament,34 other countries had also joined it.

He advised senators not to hold premature discussion and draw opinion, as it would lead to confusion, saying once Pakistan’s role was determined, this would be shared with the Parliament.

During his speech, the MQM parliamentary leader Col (R) Tahir Hussain Mashhadi staged walk-out from the House, saying his questions had not been answered by the adviser. His questions were: is it a sectarian alliance? What exactly is the threat perception? Against who is this alliance and why Pakistan became its part, as the Parliament had decided not to become component of any Saudi Arabia-led alliance?

“Each country has to decide, how and what activity, it would take part in, like intelligence-sharing, counter-terrorism etc. Talks on the alliance were underway for the last two months,” the adviser maintained. Sartaj Aziz said there were certain areas, on which discussions were to be held and Pakistan’s role and responsibility had not yet been decided. He was winding up a debate on a motion by the PPP Senator Sehar Kamran and the success and failure of the government’s foreign policy. He justified Pakistan’s decision and said terrorism was a very important issue and there were certain trouble spots in the Muslim world and, “if we did not wake up, it might move towards us”.

The adviser insisted Pakistan’s role in the alliance would be in line with its well-defined six-point foreign policy direction.

He pointed out that priorities were thrashed out in 2013 after the new government was formed, which included following the policy of non-interference, peaceful co-existence with neighbouring countries, not aid but trade and investment, focus on economic revival and to look after the overseas Pakistanis.

The adviser made it clear that very encouraging results had been achieved in all these but there was need to take the momentum forward.In her speech, Sehar Kamran alleged that the government’s foreign policy had been a complete failure and referred to its inability to present point of view before the US administration in true perspective, exposing India’s involvement in acts of terror in Fata, Balochistan and Karachi and Ufa meeting fiasco.

The PPP’s Farhatullah Babar pointed out that recently a 34-member alliance was formed and when the Foreign Office was asked about it, it expressed ignorance and the foreign secretary also next day made similar remarks and said he had sought report from the ambassador in Riyadh. He wondered to what extent Pakistan would be part of the alliance, as two days later, the Foreign Office spokesman formally announced that Pakistan was part of it. “It appeared, already an assurance had been given about Pakistan’s participation in the alliance and then afterwards an announcement was made about it.”

The senator wanted to know would Pakistan’s role be confined to aerial or Pakistani soldiers would also be sent abroad for combat. He added that recently, about 70-75 dead bodies had arrived from Afghanistan. He wanted to know who were those people, had they anything to do with non-state actors.

Sartaj Aziz said he would get back to the House after investigating the matter, being not aware of it.Earlier, Sartaj Aziz told the Senate that Pakistani missions abroad had been directed to look after interests of overseas Pakistanis in the wake of anti-Muslim rhetoric in the Western world.

He was winding up a motion by Chaudhry Tanvir Khan about hardships being faced by overseas Pakistanis due to the acts of terrorism in the Western countries. The adviser pointed out that like other Muslims Pakistani communities abroad were facing discrimination and vandalism.

He said a meeting of Pakistani ambassadors held in Islamabad last week discussed the issue in detail and the need to develop a counter-narrative to educate host communities that Islam is peace-loving religion.

Sartaj Aziz said, “Our missions are well aware of the situation and are intensifying efforts with the help of the local media to assist Pakistani community.” He noted the issue of Islamophobia was also discussed at OIC level and it would also be part of the agenda of the OIC summit to be held in February next year and counter-narrative was expected to be thrashed out.

Those who spoke on the motion highlighted the difficulties of overseas Pakistanis and demanded that our missions should become proactive to safeguard their interests. They laid emphasis on doubling the efforts to fight the tirade against Islam and promotion of a counter narrative.

The senators who spoke included Tahir Hussain Mashhadi of the MQM, Azam Swati of the PTI, Abdul Qayyum of the PML-N, PML-Q’s Saeedul Hassan Mandokhel, Javed Abbasi of the PML-N, Sirajul Haq of the Jamaat-e-Islami and Salahuddin Tirmizi of the PML-N.

The House passed two resolutions unanimously: first was moved by Azam Swati, which said, “The House recommends that the government should establish a regular full-fledged secretariat of the Council of Common Interests and ensure representation of all provinces in its staff.

The second was moved by the JUI-F Senator Muhammad Talha Mehmood: it said, “The Senate of Pakistan recommends that the system of private Haj tour operators may be revisited and a fair and strict accountability system should be evolved to deal with complaints against them”. The bill by the PPP Senator Sassui Palijo, seeking provincial representation in OGDCL, was referred to the House committee concerned.

Minister for Inter-Provincial Coordination Riaz Hussain Pirzada told the Senate that meeting of the CCI was expected in the third week of the next month.