Changing scenario: Pakistan needs to revisit its foreign policy, Khursheed Shah

He has urged the prime minister to hold an all parties conference for this purpose

SUKKUR: The leader of the opposition in the National Assembly, Syed Khursheed Ahmed Shah, has urged the Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif to hold an all parties conference of political parties and armed forces to revisit the foreign policy of the country.

Foreign policy should be revisited to take advantage of the recent agreement between Iran and other countries and to better ties with our neighbours, he said while talking to the media at an Eid party hosted by member of Islamic Ideology Council Mufti Muhammad Ibrahim Qadri at Madrassa Ghousia on Sunday afternoon.

"Earlier our government was reluctant to forge relations with Iran, but now the situation has changed," he said. Voicing opposition to martial law in Sindh he said the Muttahida Qaumi Movement chief, Altaf Hussain, had invited the army to carry out the operation in Karachi because he did not trust the police. Referring to Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), he said that its chief, Imran Khan, could prove disastrous for his own party, as he keeps on changing his statements.

He claimed that those who left the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) to join the PTI were not the basic members of the PPP, adding they came from other parties and have now joined another party, which makes no difference to the PPP. "We are in the opposition and will contest local government elections in this capacity. As far as our party's support for his [Nawaz Sharif's] government is concerned, it was just for the sake of democracy," he said, speaking about the PPP's understanding with the Pakistan Muslim League- Nawaz.

Published in The Express Tribune, July 21^st, 2015.