UN rights council: PPP files motion against diplomatic defeat

PPP has submitted an adjournment motion in the NA asking the speaker to hold a debate on key foreign policy issues

ISLAMABAD:

Pakistan’s failure to retain a seat in the United Nations Human Rights Council continues to embarrass Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s government in both houses of parliament.

Opposition parties already castigating the government in the upper house, now plan to take up the issue in the National Assembly.

Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP), which controls the Senate and has the key office of leader of opposition in the National Assembly, has submitted an adjournment motion in the Lower House asking the speaker to hold a debate on key foreign policy issues.

“We request that the proceedings of the House be adjourned to discuss the urgent and serious matter related to non-election of Pakistan as member of the UN Human Rights Council. The defeat raises serious questions of foreign policy of Pakistan and the performance of foreign ministry officials which resulted in such diplomatic humiliation”, says the text of the motion submitted by PPP MNAs at the assembly’s secretariat.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 8^th, 2015.