Pakistan on Thursday denied any plans to send weapons to Syrian terrorists rebels, amid reports that Saudi Arabia is holding talks with it about arming the insurgents.
A Saudi source said Sunday that Riyadh was seeking Pakistani anti-aircraft and anti-tank rockets for forces fighting to topple President Bashar al-Assad.
| My guess is that they'll try to play both sides of the fence, along with sitting on it and burrowing underneath it. |
The United States has long opposed arming the rebels with such weapons, fearing they might end up in the hands of terrorists extremists. But Syrian opposition figures say the failure of peace talks in Geneva seems to have led Washington to soften its opposition.
Sartaj Aziz, the prime minister's adviser on foreign affairs, told reporters Pakistan has not considered such a proposal.
"The reports about arms supply to Syria are totally baseless," Aziz said.
The Saudi source had pointed to a visit to Riyadh earlier this month by Pakistan's army chief, General Raheel Sharif, who met Crown Prince Salman bin Abdul Aziz. Prince Salman himself last week led a large delegation to Pakistan, shortly after Saudi Arabia's chief diplomat Prince Saud al-Faisal visited the country -- a key ally.
| They were talking about .. upgrades to Mecca. Yeah, that's it, for the Haj... |
Foreign ministry spokeswoman Tasneem Aslam said at a regular briefing that Pakistan did not supply arms to "entities", meaning terrorist rebel groups.
"The policy guidelines for the sale of arms that we have are in line with the adherence to the purposes and principles of the UN charter," she said. "We also have what is known as end users' certificate which ensures that our weapons are not resold or provided to a third country." |