NSA eavesdropping: PPP lodges protest with US ambassador

In a letter to Richard Olson, party seeks compensation.

ISLAMABAD: The Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) has formally protested to the United States over reports that the National Security Agency (NSA) had been eavesdropping on the party in 2010.

The protest was communicated in a letter from PPP secretary general and former prime minister Raja Pervaiz Ashraf to the US envoy, Richard G Olson.

In the letter, the PPP demanded appropriate compensation for the insensitivity towards the party and the people of Pakistan and urged the US authorities to refrain from such activities.

Ashraf described the surveillance as an ‘unwarranted and totally unacceptable interference’ in the affairs of a political party of a sovereign country. He termed it a ‘violation of diplomatic and international norms’.

Issuing a cautious warning, the PPP leader said that “such activities would increase the distrust between the people of Pakistan and the US government”.  The PPP strongly resents and deplores this overbearing attitude of a US federal agency, the letter further said.

Earlier this week, Pakistan formally lodged its protest with Washington, following recent media reports indicating that it was among the countries subject to surveillance by the NSA.

“The US Embassy in Islamabad was conveyed that such actions against Pakistani government departments or other organisations, entities and individuals were not in accord with international law and recognised diplomatic conduct,” a press release from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs stated.

The PPP urged the government to raise the issue at the diplomatic level and subsequently seek assurances from Washington that such grave violations of international law would not be repeated.

Published in The Express Tribune, July 7^th, 2014.