Decision Time: Cabinet to review role in Afghan war
Special meeting next week to strategise how Pakistan can reassess its terms of engagement with the US.
ISLAMABAD:
The cabinet will hold another special meeting next week to formally review the country’s role in the war in Afghanistan.
Officials told The Express Tribune on Friday that the meeting, planned for December 8, will proceed on decisions taken in a meeting in Lahore last week and formalise a strategy on how Pakistan can reassess its terms of engagement with the US.
“We do not have any formal agenda other than discussing the precarious situation after the Nato attacks and the Supreme Court decision on the memo scandal,” a cabinet member said. Pakistan’s top civilian and military leaders have said that the country will not go on working on the same terms in the war on terror. Last week, Gilani told CNN that there would no more be “business as usual” with the US.
The cabinet member said that since there is much anger in the country over the attacks, the government will have to take a strong stand on the issue. “We need to strike a balance…being a political and democratically elected government it is more important for us to be sensitive to public anger,” he added.
In the meeting in Lahore last Tuesday, the federal cabinet had decided to boycott a key meeting next week on the Afghan endgame in Bonn, Germany.
Published in The Express Tribune, December 3rd, 2011.
The cabinet will hold another special meeting next week to formally review the country’s role in the war in Afghanistan.
Officials told The Express Tribune on Friday that the meeting, planned for December 8, will proceed on decisions taken in a meeting in Lahore last week and formalise a strategy on how Pakistan can reassess its terms of engagement with the US.
“We do not have any formal agenda other than discussing the precarious situation after the Nato attacks and the Supreme Court decision on the memo scandal,” a cabinet member said. Pakistan’s top civilian and military leaders have said that the country will not go on working on the same terms in the war on terror. Last week, Gilani told CNN that there would no more be “business as usual” with the US.
The cabinet member said that since there is much anger in the country over the attacks, the government will have to take a strong stand on the issue. “We need to strike a balance…being a political and democratically elected government it is more important for us to be sensitive to public anger,” he added.
In the meeting in Lahore last Tuesday, the federal cabinet had decided to boycott a key meeting next week on the Afghan endgame in Bonn, Germany.
Published in The Express Tribune, December 3rd, 2011.