US-Saudi Arabia relations on the rocks

‘Aaj Shahzeb Khanzada Kay Sath’ on Thursday

US Senate approves bill that enables victims of 9/11 attacks to sue Saudi Arabia

KARACHI: The US Senate has approved an important bill after which heirs of those who died in the 9/11 attacks will be able to take the Saudi government to US courts, said Shahzeb Khanzada on Geo News programme, ‘Aaj Shahzeb Khanzada Kay Sath’, on Wednesday.

In the next phase, the bill will be laid before the US House of Representatives, and it is being said that the House of Representatives will also approve it. Shahzeb said the matter is contaminating US-Saudi Arabia relations.  He said that what the USA was going to be doing to Saudi Arabia, it may later do the same to other countries, including Pakistan.

Shahzeb said that Pakistan may not be able to escape the effects of this bill either. The perpetrators of several terrorist activities in USA have been proved to have belonged to Pakistan. Those who were targeted in these incidents may attempt to take Pakistan to the court as well.  Shahzeb said that US President Barack Obama strongly opposed the bill, which intends to initiate legal action against Saudi Arabia but despite his opposition, members of his own party joined the struggle to get the bill approved. President Obama has expressed his apprehensions that if the bill is approved, it will increase the likelihood of legal action against America as well because there is a large number of complaints against America in the world.

Although, President Obama has been opposing the bill yet he has been supporting declassification of those 28 pages of the Nine Eleven Commission Report which allege links between Saudi officials and the perpetrators of the 9/11 attacks.

Shahzeb Khanzada said that Saudi Arabia’s complaints against America are increasing on the one hand while on the other hand America is also drifting apart. Saudi Arabia has recently warned America that it may withdraw its $750 billion investment from that country. However, experts in international economic affairs think that Saudi Arabia is unlikely to do any such thing because such a step would not only harm America but the Saudi economy as well.

Moving on to a different topic, Shahzeb Khanzada said the Muttahida Qaumi Movement appears to have been totally isolated after the party parted ways with the joint opposition on the matter of PanamaLeaks. Just as the government and the opposition managed to agree on a committee for framing the TORs, differences between the MQM and the joint opposition emerged.

The joint opposition has named six of its members who will take part in the proceedings of the committee to draw the TORs, but it does not include any MQM member. Nevertheless, Muttahida has asked the Speaker of the National Assembly to facilitate inclusion of a member of the MQM in the committee as its (the committee’s) 13th member.  Elaborating on the agreement between the government and the opposition on the formation of a parliamentary committee to draw the code of conduct for the inquiry commission on the PanamaLeaks, Shahzeb Khanzada said that now the issue of TORs on PanamaLeaks would be sorted out in parliament and not at the public meetings or rallies though Imran Khan continues to threaten the government with an agitation. 

Shahzeb Khanzada said that the buzz of the PanamaLeaks can also be heard in Britain. The ultra-expensive properties in London are the hub of world’s black money, and the British government is about to frame a law that could enable the government to expose the owners of those properties.

Switching his analysis from properties in London to the traffic mess in Karachi, Shahzeb Khanzada said that the latest system to monitor the traffic violations in Karachi was on the verge of failure because the institutions either do not possess a database on vehicles plying the roads of the city or the one that they do possess is not up-to-date.  A leader of the MQM, Ali Raza Abidi, while talking to Shahzeb Khanzada on the programme, said that the MQM is not indifferent to the matter of PanamaLeaks. He said he does not believe that Muttahida’s drifting apart can be termed as a wrong strategy. The PanamaLeaks apparently contain names of people belonging to the joint opposition, and until these people voluntarily offer themselves for accountability, Muttahida cannot side with them.  The MQM leader said that his party believes that matters relating to tax evasion, kickbacks and loan write offs must also be investigated.  

Finance Minister Ishaq Dar, while talking to Shahzeb Khanzada on the programme, said that MQM’s not being on the TORs committee is not a good thing. He said that in order to accommodate the MQM, the number of members on each side should be increased to seven each.  Dar said that the prime minister has not put any conditions for accountability, and he had already said that the commission was free to begin investigation from whatever stage it deems appropriate.