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| India-Pakistan |
| Senators ask govt to take bold stance against India |
| 2008-12-24 |
| Senators belonging to various parties on Tuesday asked the government to take a bold stance against India and launch a diplomatic offensive to defuse the Indian propaganda against Pakistan in the wake of the Mumbai attacks. As the Senate resumed debate on the national security situation, the senators said India wanted to achieve strategic objectives against Pakistan through 'coercive diplomacy' without going to war. Senator Waseem Sajjad of the Pakistan Muslim League-Quaid (PML-Q) said that India had blamed and threatened Pakistan even without investigating the attacks and establishing the identities and objectives of the attackers. Sajjad said India was reluctant to share evidence with Pakistan because the attacks could also have been the work of Indian groups. As far as the names of Ajmal Kasab and Ismael Khan were concerned, Sajjad said India should have disclosed the names of other people involved after Kasab's investigation. "This is not the work of only 10 persons as claimed by [the] Indian authorities. There must have been 30 to 40 people involved in these attacks but India is not disclosing their names," he said. The PML-Q senator was of the view that India had launched a diplomatic offensive after the attacks because it wanted to defame Islam in general and Pakistan in particular by linking them to terrorism. "India also wanted to achieve strategic objectives like creating a rift between our civil and military leadership, curtailing the Inter-Services Intelligence, damaging our economy and crushing peaceful Kashmiri protests in the name of terrorism even without going to war," he said. Sajjad said the government should launch a diplomatic counter-attack by sending its delegations to the members of Untied Nations Security Council and Muslim countries to counter India's propaganda. Senator Abdul Rahim Mandokhail of the Pakhtunkhwa Milli Awami Party said the government should immediately withdraw its forces from the Tribal Areas. PML's Semeen Siddiqui sought the government's clarification about the news that the president and the prime minister of Pakistan had asked China to withdraw its technical hold over the UNSC resolution declaring a Pakistani organisation as a terrorist organisation. Senator Azam Swati of the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-Fazl criticised Pakistan's Permanent Representative in the UNSC Abdullah Hussain Haroon and asked the government to call him back for his failure to present the country's point of view in the UNSC. Senator Babar Ghauri called the passage of the resolution against the Pakistan government's diplomatic failure and urged it to put its house in order. He also targeted intelligence agencies for failing to check terrorist activities in the country. Leader of the House in the Senate Raza Rabbani said Pakistan was a sovereign country and the government would not tolerate any interference in its internal matters. NATO: Rabbani informed the Upper House that NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Schoffer was on an annual visit to Pakistan and the visit had no link with the Mumbai attacks. Presence: Leader of the Opposition in the Senate Kamil Ali Agha slammed United States Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Admiral Mike Mullen and Interpol Secretary General Ronald K Noble's presence in Pakistan and demanded the government expel Mullen. He said the entire nation was united to defend the country's sovereignty and integrity but added he was unable to understand how the US military chief had dared to stand by Pakistan's arch rival and asked Islamabad to allow Indian strikes inside its territory. |
| Posted by:Fred |