The Parliamentary Committee on National Security (PCNS) on Saturday asked Finance Minister Dr Abdul Hafeez Sheikh to brief the committee members in the next meeting on financial repercussions of reviewing the terms of engagements and souring of ties with the United States and NATO forces.
Defence Secretary Lt General (r) Naeem Khalid Lodhi brief the committee on Pakistan’s military-to-military agreements with the US, NATO and ISAF forces on the war against terror.
The committee members were also provided copies of all the nine agreements signed between Pakistan and the US on defence-related issues, said a source privy to the committee’s proceedings. “Now all the members of the committee would put forth their recommendations about formulating new terms of engagements with NATO and ISAF which would later be presented to the joint sitting of the parliament for approval,” the source added. The source said that on December 30 the committee would hold two sessions, one each on the memo controversy and NATO attacks on Pakistani border posts.
Later talking to the media, PCNS Chairman Mian Raza Rabbani said the defence secretary had presented his viewpoint on the nine agreements, which included two agreements between the foreign ministries of the two countries while seven were military-related agreements. Rabbani added that the defence secretary had also briefed the committee on the preliminary report of Pentagon on the NATO attack. He said that prior to the briefing by the defence secretary, Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar had briefed on diplomatic relations and impact of the review of terms of engagements between both the countries.
