Anti-Pakistan legislation won’t get through: McCain

ISLAMABAD: US Senator John McCain has stated that the legislation in the US Senate to declare Pakistan a terror state will not be allowed to get through.

In a telephonic conversation with former president and PPP Co-chairman Asif Ali Zardari on Saturday, Senator McCain discussed a range of bilateral and international issues.

Republican Senator Ted Poe and Democrat Senator Dana Rohrabacher have moved ‘The Pakistan State Sponsor of Terrorism Designation Act’ in the US Congress to designate Pakistan a terrorist state.

However, Senator McCain, who is also the Chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said the legislation was unlikely to get through the House, as the sponsors of the resolution were a small minority in the Senate.

McCain acknowledged the sacrifices rendered by Pakistan in the fight against terrorism and emphasized that the legislation should not be seen as a deterioration of the US-Pakistan relations.

They also discussed the increase in the war of words and the Indian media’s propaganda against Pakistan, which Zardari said was to hide the Indian atrocities against Kashmiris from the world.

Zardari said Pakistan wanted a peaceful resolution of the Kashmir issue through dialogue and in accordance with the wishes of the people of Kashmir.

He said Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi was pandering to the far right with whose support he had come into power and such policies will strengthen non-state actors on both sides of the border. Zardari said being a victim, Pakistan will never support extremism and terrorism.

The two leaders agreed that Pakistan was part of the solution to this problem and it was in the interest of peace and stability that Pakistan continued to play its part in the fight against the global threat of terrorism.

Meanwhile, the Indian American community in the US has launched a White House petition to designate Pakistan a state sponsoring terrorism days after a bill in this regard was tabled in the US Congress by two lawmakers.

“This petition is important to the people of United States of America, India and many other countries which are continuously affected by Pakistan-sponsored terrorism,” said the petition.

It requires at least 100,000 signatures to qualify for a response from the Obama administration.

An initiative of US President Barack Obama “We the People”, the online petition service at the White House website provides a window to American citizens to campaign before the administration on a particular issue.

Simultaneously, the US India Political Action Committee yesterday launched a nationwide effort to canvass Indian Americans to get their local legislators’ support to the petition.