Senate presses parliament’s input over foreign policy

Foreign minister to give a second briefing to upper house today

ISLAMABAD: Senators across the board have urged the government to take parliament’s input while devising the foreign policy.

On Tuesday, the upper house held a discussion on the last week’s visit of US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson to South Asia, including his stay in Islamabad.

The house is all set for a second briefing on Wednesday (today) on foreign policy matters from the foreign minister.

Even though some opposition senators, particularly from the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP), were critical of the government’s foreign policy, others on the opposition benches, mainly the Muthahida Quami Movement (MQM), praised Foreign Minister Khawaja Asif for his statement that Pakistan should look inward and put her own house in order as well.

“We have to talk from a position of strength. Since we have decided not to support any group, this should be our national narrative,” MQM’s Nasreen Jalil said. She had earlier said that the world did not believe what Pakistan said in the past as “we act opposite to what we claim”.



PPP’s Farhatullah Babar said the way forward for Pakistan is to dismantle the jihadi infrastructure of the 1980s, dissociate from General (retd) Pervez Musharraf’s narrative and civilianise the formulation of foreign policy instead of only having the security establishment’s perspective.

Referring to last week’s briefing from the foreign minister, he said the advice that Asif gave to the US – pertaining to taking input from politicians and policy makers while framing policy on Afghanistan – should be applied to Pakistan as well.

Babar said he was shocked that Asif only reiterated Musharraf’s narrative. He informed the Senate that Musharraf would confront foreign interlocutors by asking them to pinpoint the addresses of the members of the Afghan Taliban ‘supposedly’ taking refuge in Pakistan. He added he was shocked that Asif repeated something similar and asked for the addresses of those hiding out in the country. “Musharraf's policy of denial continues,” he lamented.



Babar also said that many people welcomed the recent statements from Asif and Interior Minister Ahsan Iqbal pertaining to putting the house in order, but he wondered why these things were not mentioned in his address. “Is Asif not fully in charge of policy formulation?” he asked.

He further said that Asif should just look into the identity card and passport issued to Taliban leader Mullah Mansoor Akhtar and pieces of the puzzle might fall into place.

Pakistan Muslim League-Functional (PML-F) Senator Muzaffar Hussain Shah said that India’s role as a regional policeman could not be accepted. He underlined the need for finding a political solution to the Afghanistan imbroglio and said Pakistan would not be allowed to become a proxy in the Afghan war.

Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Senator Azam Swati alleged that the US wanted to destruct the region and take control of Pakistan’s nuclear assets.

Senator Tahir Hussain Mashhadi criticised the US for its ‘do more’ mantra and noted that it was time for the US to do more itself. He said Pakistan, Iran, China and Russia should come together to establish peace in Afghanistan.

Senator Saud Majeed was of the opinion that the House was wasting its time by discussing Tillerson’s visit, since his own president thought his visit to Pakistan was a waste of time. Majeed also said that terrorist networks in Fata had been destroyed and the government’s writ restored.

PPP’s Taj Haider said that the US establishment did not want peace in the world. They always had sinister designs for which they used extreme force, he added, while giving examples of US supporting Muslim extremists during the first Afghan war, Jewish extremists in the Middle East and now Hindu extremists in India.