‘Good governance key to viable foreign policy’

The strength in foreign policy springs from the domestic policies because if the domestic governance is sound it will give the government the confidence to negotiate with foreign countries from a position of strength and foreign ties will be mutually beneficial. Foreign policy should be based on stark realities.

These views were expressed by Najmuddin A Shaikh, the former foreign secretary of Pakistan, while speaking at a seminar titled, “Foreign policy challenges and the new government” held on Saturday.

The biggest challenge for the incoming government was to have our lands presently occupied by the Taliban vacated, he said. “If we believe that the Taliban are of no consequence, we are dead wrong there,” said Shaikh. “In 1996-2001, our areas were the strategic depth of the Taliban. For our own reasons, we would like our soil to be vacated by the Taliban.”

According to Shaikh, 13 per cent of the Afghan territory was under occupation by the Taliban. Thus they could launch so many deadly attacks. “Every government that came into power was scared of the Mullahs’ street power,” he said. “We brought militants from all over the world to Pakistan at the behest of the US but were left to cope with the disaster all by ourselves.”

The former foreign secretary cautioned that any military alliances we get into should not be anti-Iran.

He added that we had to make our borders foolproof and in this context, he quoted reports of unauthorised groups from Pakistan being killed by Iranian guards for unauthorised entry.

He said that as for security, India had a very reliable security system procured from Israel.

Talking about trade with India, he did not oppose the idea and said that India was a large market and that we needed to carve out a niche for Pakistan in that market.

He reiterated most forcefully, “If your governance is right you are sure to have a viable foreign policy, a policy that is strong enough to withstand the vicissitudes of the international factors,” he said.

He also said that the four countries’ conglomerate, China, US, Pakistan and Afghanistan, would cooperate to sort out matters between Afghanistan and Pakistan.

He said that today our most vital relations were with the US. “Afghanistan is the prism through which the US views Pakistan.”

Shaikh’s talk was followed by an animated question-answer session.

The seminar was held under the aegis of the Society for Global Moderation at the offices of the CMC Communications.