India fails to isolate Pakistan: Sethi

Aapas ki Baat

LAHORE: Najam Sethi on Monday said the attitude adopted by Afghan President Ashraf Ghani and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi at Heart of Asia Conference was as expected.

However, the Pakistani leaders anticipated that and decided to send Sartaj Aziz so as to foil India’s efforts to isolate Pakistan, said Sethi in Geo News programme ‘Aapas ki Baat’. He said the Indian and Pakistani media agreed on the point that Pakistan had been isolated.

According to Sethi, Sartaj is actually the foreign minister and no one can present Pakistan’s case better than him. We do not have a better finance and foreign policy expert than Sartaj who will never take any step without consultation with the prime minister and the ISI.

Sartaj will never do anything that may irritate either the prime minister or the security establishment. He presented the argument in Amritsar, which was expected from him.

India failed to isolate Pakistan at Heart of Asia Conference, as allies like Russia and Iran did not support her. Furthermore, India too did not name Pakistan while criticising.

Sethi said Ghani didn’t insult Pakistan and only argued that no development was possible in Afghanistan without peace; therefore, Pakistan should utilise the funds allocated for his country to root out terrorism.

He said Indian made every effort to curb the voice of Pakistan and the Pakistani journalists were not allowed to talk to the ambassador for the very reason.

Sethi said there was no need to highlight the weaknesses of Afghanistan at the conference because the forum was meant to support, not criticise, her.

According to Sethi, we would have to accept that our Afghan policy has failed and think why Ghani, who was very close to Pakistan soon after assuming the office, has now develop very intimate relation with India.

The new army chief, Gen Qamar Javed Bajwa, faces many problems at the eastern and western borders and would have to pay attention to these issues while sitting with the prime minister.

The world is not satisfied with nuclear weapons of countries like Pakistan. We would have to make her a strong, stable country, which could give the world a feeling of security. Pakistan would have to follow a responsible behaviour instead of issuing tough threatening statements.

Pakistan is still considered a terrorism centre. India has accused Pakistan of the recent three terrorism acts. The world holds Pakistan responsible for any terrorism act committed anywhere by non-state actors.

It is an illusion that terrorism has been eliminated by removing the terrorists from Fata. There are people in Pakistan who aren’t in the control of anyone. No one would acknowledge the sacrifices given in war against terror if Pakistan does not move forward. We would have to decide that ideology, narrative and extremism are the basis of terrorism.

Sethi said US president-elect Donald Trump and Nawaz had an excellent conversation, adding that one could expect anything from Trump and the telephonic talk was also part of that.

He said the warm tone of Trump even surprised Nawaz and the PML-N was so happy that a press release was especially issued. On the other hand, the US media censured Trump because it was against Pakistan, he added.

He said it would be a grave misapprehension if the government or the prime minister though they had developed personal relationship with Trump.  Sethi also praised the prime minister for renaming the Quaid-e-Azam University Physics Department to honour Dr Abdus Salam.