Kabul ‘offers third-party verification of terror attacks’

Senate passes bill to try retired PAF officials involved in corruption in JF-17 project


Irfan Ghauri May 16, 2017
Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif walks with Afghan President Ashraf Ghani upon his arrival at the Nur Khan Airbase in Rawalpindi on December 9, 2015. PHOTO: AFP

ISLAMABAD: The Senate was informed on Monday that Afghanistan had offered third-party verification to confirm that its soil was not being used to launch terror attacks inside Pakistan.

“The top leadership of the neighbouring country made the offer during a recent visit of the Pakistani parliamentary delegation,” Federal Minister for States and Frontier Regions (Safron) Lt-Gen (retd) Abdul Qadir Baloch disclosed while giving policy statement on five foreign policy-related questions raised by Senate Chairman Raza Rabbani.

The delegation led by the National Assembly speaker, besides meeting their Afghan counterparts, had marathon meeting of six hours with President Ashraf Ghani and three hours-long meetings each with Afghan Chief Executive Abudullah Abdullah and former president Hamid Karzai.

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Trust deficit between Pakistan and Afghanistan has been a long-standing issue. Both sides routinely trade allegations of use of other side’s soil by terrorist groups.

The minister, however, did not say anything about Pakistan’s response to the Afghan offer, nor any of the Senate members tried to seek further details, and the house was prorogued, leaving no room for the members to broach the matter till the new session begins.

Pakistani parliamentarians during the visit also delivered invitation of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif to the top three Afghan political leaders to visit Pakistan.

The Afghan president declined the invitation, saying he already visited Pakistan twice on the Pakistani premier’s invitation and would like to see Sharif in Kabul first.

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However, Abdullah and Karzai, accepted separately delivered invitations, the minister said.

Briefing the house on the last week’s border skirmish near Chaman in which both sides suffered heavy causalities, the minister said: “It was caused due to alleged crossing into the Afghan side of a village by a census team.”

“The Afghan side claims that the Pakistani enumerators accompanied by an army soldier and a policeman entered into the Afghan side of the divided village having some population on the Pakistani side and some on the Afghan side of the Durand Line.”

A joint investigation team in its report had now concluded that Afghanistan’s claim was untrue and the team remained within Pakistani side of the village and the attack by Afghan forces was an “overreaction”, Baloch said.

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On the issue of upcoming visit of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif to Saudi Arabia, the minister said: “The Saudi king has invited heads of states of a number of Muslim countries in what is actually an Arab and GCC conference.”

American President Donald Trump will also be attending the moot.

“Prime Minister Sharif and heads of states of some other Muslim countries have been invited for their input in what is actually an Arab countries’ conference,” he remarked.

The minister did not mention anything about a likely meeting of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif with the US president on the sidelines of the summit.

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On the issue of a purported statement by the Iranian military chief threatening hot pursuit of alleged militant groups inside Pakistan, the minister said Iranian officials, including its envoy to Islamabad, had already clarified that the statement was misquoted.

“Iran’s foreign minister also visited Pakistan and met with Pakistani civil and military leadership [to clear the misunderstanding],” he added

Narrating his recent visit to Iran, Baloch said he found great alacrity in the Iranian leadership to improve ties with Pakistan.

“They do have certain reservations with regard to regional security issues but they did not mention it during my visit,” the minister said, giving details of his four-day visit without mentioning the dates.

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The minister in his policy statement also briefly referred Pakistan taking up with Iran the issue of Indian spy Kulbhushan Jadhav. “Tehran does not own our claim on Jadhav,” he remarked.

The next query was regarding a statement the Indian media attributed to the Chinese envoy to India suggesting the name of CPEC might be changed. The minister said Chinese officials denied it at the highest level.

Earlier, the government managed to pass an amendment to the Pakistan Air Force Act-1953 that gives powers to the Air Force to reopen cases, with retrospective effect, against retired officers under the Air Force Act with a majority vote in the Senate.

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Interestingly, the PTI lent its support to the government to pass the bill amidst the PPP’s strong opposition.

Minister for Law and Justice Zahid Hamid explained the bill had been brought in the house to amend the existing PAF law that bars taking up any case of corruption against its officers after six months of their retirement.

Without disclosing their names, the minister revealed the PAF had unearthed some ‘mega’ corruption by certain officials in the JF Thunder aircraft project -- a joint venture of Pakistan and China.

The legislation sought retrospective application of law from January 1, 2000.

The PPP objected to its applicability from a specific date apprehending that the backdated legislation seemed to target some unspecified former officers of the PAF.

PPP Senator Farhatullah Babar, who as member of the defence committee had written a dissenting note, said: “A PAF officer, who retired 17 years ago, is a civilian and can be tried for alleged corruption under stringent provisions of NAB applicable from 1985.”

The Senate also passed a law to constitute the National Commission to Protect the Rights of Children.

COMMENTS (3)

Solat | 6 years ago | Reply Afghanistan will name India as the third party to investigate any terror issue :D
iRonMan! | 6 years ago | Reply why always against the retired ones and not the ones in service?
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