Senate Chairman Mian Raza Rabbani on Thursday said the people of Pakistan are appalled at the views expressed by certain American law makers in the US Congress regarding Pakistan.
“This seems to have become an unfortunate pattern of blaming Pakistan for the mistakes made by US policy makers on Afghanistan and elsewhere in the Muslim world, which the recent Chilcot inquiry revealed,” Rabbani said in a statement.
Rabbani was responding to a US congressional panel which has demanded cutting off all US assistance to Pakistan to persuade Islamabad to act against the Afghan Taliban groups allegedly using its territory to launch operations into Afghanistan.
The Senate chairman alleged that such sentiments also demonstrate a marked lack of respect and recognition of the tremendous contribution made by the Pakistani people and the armed forces in its fight against terrorism.
“Given this context, it is not surprising that the people of Pakistan are now forced to ask the question whether they are dealing with friends or foes in the American congress,” Rabbani said.
He said that such statements from some of the US law makers are a case of the pot calling kettle black, given their deplorable track record of double standards on areas such as human rights.
“Their conspicuous silence on the killings of unarmed civilians in Kashmir, the treatment being meted out to African-American in their own country and the effort to impose India on the NSG in violation of all norms of nuclear non-proliferation reflect this,” the Senate chairman remarked.
Rabbani hoped that saner elements in US congress will respond to such statements.