Raymond Davis case will not thwart talks: Basit

Foreign office spokesperson says he is confident the three-way talks will be rescheduled in due course of time.

ISLAMABAD: Pakistani Foreign Ministry spokesman Abdul Basit said Islamabad was looking forward to the rescheduling of the trilateral meeting as soon as possible as "such meetings yield positive results for peace and security".

"We hope one person would not drive Pakistan-US relations and we hope we would not be losing sight of the strategic imperative of our relations," Basit told Reuters.

The spokesperson declined to comment on what the escalating diplomatic spat means for the Davis case or for relations with the United States.

The trilateral meetings have been held periodically to foster stability in Afghanistan, where around 100,000 US troops are fighting Taliban militants, and in Pakistan, where the government battles an insurgency on its own.

On Friday, a Pakistani court kept Davis in jail for 14 more days, in a sign of deepening the row that could threaten US assistance to Pakistan, one of the largest non-NATO recipients of American military aid.

The United States says Davis's arrest is a violation of international conventions because he has diplomatic immunity, while Islamabad says the matter will be decided by its courts.

Updated from print edition (below)

US puts off key talks with Pakistan

A standoff between the United States and Pakistan over American citizen Raymond Davis, accused of killing two Pakistanis, took an ominous turn on Saturday when the State Department put off trilateral talks due later this month.

“In light of the political changes in Pakistan and after discussions with Afghan and Pakistani officials in Washington, it was agreed to postpone the trilateral meeting scheduled for February 23-24,” State Department spokesperson Philip Crowley said in a statement.

“We look forward to convening a very productive trilateral meeting at the earliest opportunity,” he said, adding that Washington remains “committed to robust engagement between Afghanistan, Pakistan and the United States.”

Though Crowley said that the meeting was postponed due to ‘political developments’ in Pakistan, it is widely believed that the move was part of US efforts to put pressure on Pakistan to release Davis.

Earlier this week, the US had put on hold ‘some of bilateral engagements’ with Pakistan and some Congressmen went even a step further, threatening to stop billions of dollars American aid to cash-starved Pakistan.

The US Congress in 2009 approved a five-year, $7.5bn aid package meant to build schools, infrastructure and democratic institutions in Pakistan.

But the top bureaucrat  at Pakistan’s foreign ministry said on Saturday that the American pressure would be ‘counterproductive’.

Foreign Secretary Salman Bashir told the media in Islamabad that seeking diplomatic immunity for a person involved in a criminal act would be counterproductive. “The Lahore High Court (LHC) has explicitly said that it is prerogative of the court to decide the matter,” he added.

He quashed the impression that there was any pressure from the presidency for tampering with records in Davis’ case.

On the trilateral meeting, Bashir said that it would be rescheduled.

However, he added that the move was not linked in any way with the Davis issue.

The US claims that Davis is a member of its ‘administrative and technical staff’ at its mission and hence enjoys full diplomatic immunity.

But interestingly former foreign minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi strongly disagreed. Davis is neither a diplomat nor was he entitled to diplomatic immunity under the Vienna convention, Qureshi told a reception hosted in his honour at the ministry of foreign affairs on Saturday.

According to him, he had conveyed his opinion to US State Secretary Hillary Clinton in a telephonic conversation on January 28.

Qureshi said that his opinion on the Davis issue cost him his job in the federal cabinet. He said that he was offered another portfolio in the recent ‘rightsizing’ of the cabinet, but he turned down the offer.

“I will not accept any ministry other than the foreign affairs,”

Qureshi quoted himself as telling the prime minister.

The former foreign minister did not insist on a meeting with Secretary Clinton when she threatened to cancel the interaction on the fringes of the international security conference in the German city on Munich earlier this month.

The next day, the US ambassador in Islamabad officially informed Qureshi that the meeting had been cancelled.

Foreign Secretary Bashir told the media that Pakistan and the US would not allow the Davis issue to damage their diplomatic relations, spanning over 60-odd years.

He also spoke about his recent meeting with Indian counterpart Nirupama Rao in the Bhutanese city of Thimphu, saying that it was a breakthrough as far as resumption of stalled dialogue between the two countries was concerned.

He said that the two sides agreed to work for resumption of full spectrum dialogue anytime next month. With additional input from AFP

Published in The Express Tribune, February 13^th, 2011.