Joint session of parliament: Plea for releasing Osama’s widow

Mushahid asks govt to grant Yemen’s request.

ISLAMABAD:

PML-Q leader Mushahid Hussain Sayed insists that Pakistan send bin Laden’s younger wife Amal al Sadeh and their four children back to Yemen in a “show of solidarity with the Muslim Ummah”.

Speaking at the joint session of parliament on Friday, Mushahid urged the government to consider the request by the Yemeni foreign minister for the extradition of Bin Laden’s family.

Sadeh along with Bin Laden’s two other wives from Saudi Arabia and an undisclosed number of children have been detained by Pakistani authorities since the Abbottabad raid.

Policy recommendations

Mushahid also urged the government to reformulate its foreign policy according to changing political scenarios in South Asia.

Speaking on Pakistan’s relationship with the United States, he said that we should stand by our neighbours when “Washington is making its mind to give Iran a tough time.” He added that the US was also preparing India against China by facilitating it with all kinds of arms.

In the light of these developments, Mushahid observed that the recommendations laid out by the report of the Parliamentary Committee on National Security (PCNS) were comprehensive.

“It (report) gives a clear-cut roadmap on key issues with the US,” he said. Mushahid was reserved, however, regarding certain recommendations such as the presence of CIA operators, and asked they be amended.

Regarding the resumption of Nato supplies through Pakistan, he suggested disallowing the transfer of weapons as long as drone strikes continue, while allowing other items to pass through.

Other attendees were equally vociferous in a session dominated by foreign policy discussion vis-à-vis the US and the war on terror.

Abdul Malik Wazir, an MNA from Fata, demanded the permanent closure of all Nato supplies arguing that it is impossible to check each and every consignment.

Separately, PPP Senator Mudassir Sehar Kamran demanded that infrastructure damages in Pakistan due to the war on terror must be compensated.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 31^st, 2012.