The way forward
The country’s top civilian and military leadership approved on Wednesday recommendations of the Parliamentary Committee on National Security on new terms of engagement with the United States at a time when Washington is trying to explore various options for rebuilding relationship with Islamabad which had deteriorated since January 2011.
The meeting chaired by President Zardari and attended by Prime Minister Gilani, Foreign Minister Khar, the three services chiefs and DG ISI decided to take all political parties on board before presenting the parliamentary committee’s recommendation to the joint session of parliament on March 19, two days after the presidential address due on Saturday.
The committee is learnt to have prepared a series of recommendations on Pakistan-US relations and related issues mainly focusing on Nato supplies. News reports quoted sources indicating that the government has decided to restore the supplies, suspended after the attack on Salalah checkpost in November last year which killed 24 Pakistani soldiers, but only after levying transportation charges on vehicles and goods. That the route carries nearly half the supplies of coalition forces in Afghanistan at one-tenth the cost of air supply explains why the US Administration is so deeply concerned about the issue.
This seems to be one of the issues that Secretary of State Clinton identified as “legitimate concerns and disagreements” in her address to the Global Chiefs of Missions conference in Washington on Wednesday. But while she focused on the need of staying engaged with Islamabad, Pakistan Ambassador Sherry Rehman tried to downplay media reports about the two countries having reached an agreement on redefining their troubled relationship.
Since Pakistan’s cooperation is vital to the United State as long as the latter remains engaged in Afghanistan, the American administration needs to understand that the new terms of engagement have to be based on the principle of sovereign equality. It is only then that the two countries can focus on their common goal of eradicating the menace of terrorism.
