Defence minister to brief NA on Saudi alliance

PTI’s Mazari complains Aziz’s briefing to NA panel was incomplete

ISLAMABAD:

The lower house of parliament was informed on Friday that the Prime Minister’s Adviser on Foreign Affairs Sartaj Aziz gave an incomplete briefing to a parliamentary panel on Islamabad’s stance regarding the 34-nation alliance formed by Saudi Arabia.

Clarifying Pakistan’s role in the military coalition that Riyadh announced on December 15 to fight terrorism, the prime minister’s foreign policy aide on Tuesday told the National Assembly Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs that Pakistan will not deploy its ground forces to any country.



Aziz had said the Saudi coalition was not against any specific country and that was the reason Pakistan announced its participation in it. He had said Pakistan had always backed any regional or international effort against terrorist groups such as Islamic State or Da’ish and al Qaeda.

On Friday, the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) lawmaker Dr Shireen Mazari, who is also a member of the panel on foreign affairs, revealed that Sartaj Aziz did not reply to important questions related to role of Pakistan in the newly proposed military alliance. “Aziz told us that Defence Minister Khawaja Asif will comment on this specific issue after completion of his (recent) US visit,” she said.



Following these revelations, Asif gave an interim statement on the issue. “It is still an evolving alliance,” he said, adding that “our commitment against terrorism is absolute”.

The minister pledged that he would present a complete picture on Pakistan’s stance on the issue on Monday. “I will clarify all things in the next week and will also be available to all queries,” he said. “I don’t need to speak in-camera, I will present all facts to this house in the presence of media,” he added.

Dr Mazari asked defence minister to clarify whether it was an ‘alliance’ or ‘cooperative framework’. She said during the recent in-camera briefing, Aziz had termed it a ‘cooperative framework’.



“However, you are using the words ‘military alliance’,” she said, adding that there is no pick and choose in military alliances. Dr Mazari’s comment caught Asif off-guard as he backed out from his stance and said he would try to use more appropriate terms now.

However, the ruling Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz’s (PML-N) lawmaker and the NA’s Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs’ chairman Owais Ahmad Laghari contradicted Dr Mazari and said Sartaj Aziz had used the word ‘coalition’ for the development.

Laghari said all parliamentary parties, including the PTI lawmakers showed satisfaction over Aziz’s in-camera presentation. He said the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) MNA Naveed Qamar and the PTI’s Shah Mahmood Qureshi and Dr Mazari were present in the briefing.

“Why they did not tell their respective parties about Pakistan’s stance on this issue? Or is this a move to play to the galleries,” he said.

However, Dr Mazari said Laghari’s statement was ‘inaccurate and untrue’.

Explaining his point, Laghari said he was just sharing the crux and conclusion of the briefing and his statement was not ‘a pack of lies’. He also requested that Dr Mazari’s remarks should be expunged from the proceedings.

However, Dr Mazari said she would not allow this to happen and stood by what she said.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 16^th, 2016.