As the year 2013 has ended with a feeling of no successes and more failures, the hope remains to be of a brighter future, provided the new leadership in the government, military, judiciary – along with the nation – go hand in hand to face the challenges head-on. The challenges continue to remain on four major fronts: combating terrorism, strengthening political stability, overcoming energy shortages and dealing with unpredictable situations on our borders. Our fight against terrorism has entered a crucial phase – most of the credit for clearing the tribal areas of terrorist outfits goes to the army – but the ulema, politicians, media and the intelligentsia need to do a lot towards fighting sectarianism and extremism both ideologically and intellectually. The major question is if the army is fighting the Taliban, then who is fighting the Talibanism or Talibanisation? That means the nation has to straighten out its outlook by shedding sectarian prejudices and preferences. Besides, the trial of Gen (retd) Pervez Musharraf is to be seen in its true perspective, without putting the blame on army and without dragging it into it.
The UN General Assembly’s resolution on drone strikes is considered to be an achievement on part of the government “as it has the potential of triggering a worldwide debate against President Obama’s “weapon of choice”. On the economy front, years of campaigning in Brussels have finally paid off with an EU Parliament vote confirming wide-ranging trade concessions for Pakistan’s exports under the EU’s GSP-Plus scheme.
Besides interacting with world’s financial institutions and pleading for inflow of foreign assistance, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s priority list also seems to be focusing on improvement in bilateralism with India. But the most significant of all was the rendezvous of the DGMOs of both Pakistan and India militaries – a rare event at the Wagha border that was enthusiastically highlighted by the world media. The Directors General of Military Operations, in their meeting, pledged to uphold the 2003 Line of Control (LoC) ceasefire accord which had been left in tatters by repeated violations by the Indian side last year. The two countries agreed to a number of steps to keep the ceasefire accord intact.
F Z KHAN
Islamabad