Caution urged: Nation advised to prudently approach Yemen crisis

Seminar on Pakistani military intervention in Yemen held.

LAHORE: Former foreign minister Khurshid Mahmood Kasuri said on Thursday that the nation had a stake in the Yemen imbroglio as millions of Pakistanis resided in the region.

He was speaking at a seminar on the nation’s military involvement in the Saudi-led offensive against Houthi rebels in Yemen. Kasuri said two million Pakistanis, who remitted billions of dollars in remittances every year, were resident in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia alone.  He said the kingdom and China were staunchest allies of the nation. Kasuri said the states had always supported Pakistan in testing times.

He said the nation’s intelligence agencies had stronger ties with the kingdom than the foreign office. He said taking a back seat in the imbroglio was not in the interest of the nation. Kasuri said this could not be attributed to Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s personal relations with the House of Saud. He said he understood the ambiguity being maintained around the issue by the foreign office and politicians. Kasuri said the nation should take a prudent approach regarding the cauldron and strive to maintain a distance from the civil war in Yemen. Kasuri said Pakistan, Turkey and Iran could defuse tension in the region. He said the kingdom and Iran could be convinced to stay out of the conflict. Kasuri said the Islamic State (IS) constituted the gravest threat to regional stability and called on all countries in the area to join forces against the movement.

South Asian Free Media Association president Imtiaz Alam demanded the government eliminate threats to the nation and the region before committing troops elsewhere. He said Pakistani intervention in the imbroglio would exacerbate sectarian tensions across the nation and the world. Alam said the kingdom should fight the IS instead of canvassing international support for its Yemen offensive.

Professor Muhammad Waseem of the Lahore University of Management Sciences said there was no threat to the places of religious significance in the kingdom. Waseem said the imbroglio did not imperil the nation’s immediate neighbourhood. He said becoming a party to the conflict would strain relations with Iran and put the Iran-Pakistan gas pipeline project in jeopardy. Waseem said the stance of political parties on the imbroglio was as confounding as that of the foreign office. He said Pakistan should follow in the footsteps of Turkey and mediate in the conflict.

The speakers called on the government to stay out of the conflict. They rapped the government and politicians for not taking a clear stance on the issue. The speakers claimed that the government was correlating the prime minister’s business interests with national interest.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 11^th, 2015.