The release of Amnesty International report calling the US drone campaign not only as illegal and illegitimate but also calling some of the killings carried out “unlawfully, which could even amount to war crimes” at a time when Premier Sharif expressed his vow to raise the issue in his meeting with president Obama “is timely” as Aizaz Ch, the Pakistan Foreign Office spokesman call it. Though the commentators here were not very optimistic as to whether NS would be able to convince the Obama administration, yet they say he had with him solid argument with concrete evidence.
Already the UN Secretary-General, Ban Ki-moon, the UN’s special representative in his report, and the experts of international law at The Hague have called the drone attacks unlawful act challenging the sovereignty of a country. Keeping in view the Americans’ Syrian experience and government shutdown at home under economic circumstances, there is a hope of the drone campaign ending. However, there is much to see as to what the Sharif government has close to its chest regarding undertakings given to the Obama administration. The times to come would determine whether Nawaz Sharif was able to cash in on the situation near the US withdrawal from Afghanistan or he was made to surrender for political gains.
PROFESSOR ALYA ALVI
Rawalpindi