The Parliamentary Committee on National Security (PCNS) on Tuesday adopted most of the recommendations forwarded by the envoys’ conference besides finalising its recommendations on new terms of engagements with the US and NATO forces in war against terrorism.
A source told Pakistan Today that the committee had to extend its deadline for drafting its recommendations by another day as it had to incorporate some “useful input” from foreign and defence ministries based on the recent communication with the US administrations. “Some useful proposals have been received by the committee from defence and foreign ministries which were needed to incorporate in the recommendations. This input was based on recent communication with US administration including those interactions held recently,” the source added.
Earlier, Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar and Secretary Defence Lt General (r) Naeem Khalid Lodhi gave their input for a second time to the members of the committee over the subject matter. The committee discussed in length the recommendations by Finance Ministry and later approved them.
Committee chairman Raza Rabbani told reporters that the committee members would have a final meeting today (Wednesday) afternoon to give final touches to the draft of recommendations, which would later be sent to Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani who would later forward it to the joint sitting of parliament for approval.
“We would not give specific recommendations to the joint sitting of the parliament and rather these would be policy guidelines for new terms of engagements with NATO and the ISAF forces,” he said.
Earlier, Foreign Minister Hina Khar said Pakistan and the US were necessary for each other. Responding to a question, the minister said there was no recommendation to link the restoration of NATO supplies with provision of civil nuclear technology to Pakistan. She said that the PCNS had adopted most of the recommendations forwarded by the envoys’ conference.
