Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi flew into Dubai on Thursday reportedly carrying a message from Prime Minister Imran Khan. And as the world goes about diplomacy these days, a few tweets followed après his meetings with the Emirati leaders stating furthering of bilateral relations and welfare of Pakistani diaspora in the sheikhdom were the main agenda items.
Mentioning of good ‘brotherly or historic’ relations have been often-parroted shibboleths employed by the custodians of the erstwhile Hotel Shahrzad in Islamabad. Why abandoning the jargon of the bygone decades remains too difficult for the Pakistani practitioners of modern day diplomacy beats an ordinary observer. But lets believe our Cambridge-educated chief diplomat for now as he expects a rethink by UAE on the visas issue and hopes the Emirates would reverse its decision about including Pakistan into the list of countries whose citizens were disallowed travel to UAE for work or pleasure.
Why Pakistan was added to the list of 13 countries mostly Muslim by the cornucopious Gulf state remains troubling nonetheless. One can understand or argue why Afghanistan, Algeria, Iran, Iraq, Kenya, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Syria, Tunisia, Turkey or Yemen made the list. But Pakistan? Is Islamabad being tested for attempting a half-independent foreign policy? Is Pakistan being arm-twisted into a situation where it must take an unpalatable diplomatic decision regarding the emerging geopolitical scenario in the Middle East? Whatever the case may be, Pakistan should not be telling its people half-truths – that the UAE action was necessitated because of Covid-19 pandemic. Word coming out of Abu Dhabi put forward ‘security reason’ for the downing the visa facility.
Stopping Pakistanis from visiting or applying for work in the former Trucial state would have seriously negative implications for Pakistan. The 1.5 million Pakistanis living and working in UAE remit a sizeable chunk of Pakistan’s total remittances. Only last month, they sent home $519.5 million – nearly 22 per cent of all remittance received.
Information shared by international real estate operators reveal that Pakistanis are among top 10 investors in Dubai real estate including industries in free zone as well as the mainland. Though most Pakistanis working in the UAE can be described as labourers, there are a large number of professionals in many other sectors including accounting and finance.
As per recent Dubai Land Department (DLD) records, Pakistani investments exceeded $15.5 billion (Dh57 billion) through 46,058 real estate investments made by 32,083 investors in the past 10 years, claims a London-based real estate company. In fact, 7,000 Pakistani expats around the world including those living in Britain, UAE, Europe, and USA own Rs1,100 billion worth properties in Dubai. Pakistani expatriates are one of the largest buyers of properties in Dubai and the second largest among the non-GCC investors, it said.
Sizeable numbers but they represent private investments for private benefit. Compare it with the Indian influence in the UAE. Starting from around $180 million bilateral trade in the 1970s when the UAE became independent, the bilateral trade between the UAE and India has risen to $59 billion a year in 2019-2020 making India UAE’s third largest trading partner after the US and China. It is also the second largest export destination for Indian products – worth $29 billion in 2019-2020. Indian expats living and working in the UAE are approximately 3.42 million. That is a sizeable number in a country of around 9.8 million.
Pakistani foreign minister cannot be oblivious to facts stated above. *Then why has he chosen Dubai to tell the world that India is planning to attack Pakistan with the unspoken permission from its global partners? According to Foreign Minister Qureshi, New Delhi is “trying to seek tacit approval” to carry out surgical strikes inside Azad Kashmir and Pakistan from “important players who they [Indians] want to be their partners”.*
He and his ministry officials stress India would do so to divert international attention from its internal issues and chaos like the Kashmir imbroglio, the ongoing farmers protest, communal violence, recent revelations by the Brussels-based Disinfolab etc. detailing Indian cheating exercise spanning over 15 years aiming at international institutions in order to defame Pakistan.
Trouble with the present regime and its various ministers and spokespeople remain their vocality. Devoid of diplomatic nuances, they blurt out whatever attracts the illiterate masses. But that is not expected of an experienced hand like Shah Mehmood Qureshi. It requires a national debate, even if the culture of debate has evaporated from our discussion chambers, to discuss what necessitated him to say what he has said while sitting in a foreign country.
*Hardly a day goes by when we do not incessantly talk about our geographic focality, telling the world they need us more than we need them. We have been running to the courts of those running the world, offering services in return for peanuts for the privileged elite. We feel aggrieved that our “friends and partners” of the past have abandoned us for our eternal enemy. We feel pained that the “friends and partners” have rebranded the international waters touching our shores from Asia-Pacific to Indo-Pacific without consulting us. But that’s the way international politics works. Friends come and go interests remain paramount.*
*During Pervez Musharraf’s reign, a former home secretary had said that “intelligence agencies of some friendly countries are playing dirty games in Balochistan”. I remember asking Pervez Musharraf in a presser held in London’s Dorchester Hotel if he would confirm or deny what his home secretary had said. The erstwhile dictator shied away from giving a straight answer but added, “all intelligence agencies play dirty games”.*
*Hence the billion-dollar question that what good is the knowledge of knowing your enemy’s “intent” or its machinations of winning “tacit approval” from its “partners” to surgically strike Pakistan if we do not have the muscle or the wherewithal to name those partners? Is it because we have been friends with those partners all along? *
Those in charge of our foreign policy should not forget that states behave like human being because human beings run them. You cannot go on naming or mentioning countries for not being cozy with you and then expect them to behave according to your wishes.
