Lawmakers from the two houses of parliament on Wednesday underscored the importance of Parliamentary Friendship Groups (PFGs) in making positive contribution towards improving ties, especially with the neighbouring countries such as Afghanistan and India.
Parliamentarians were speaking at a workshop organised by PILDAT on the Effectiveness of Parliamentary Friendship Groups of the National Assembly and Senate with special emphasis on the PFGs focusing on Afghanistan and India in Islamabad today. Speakers at the Workshop who shared their views included State Minister for Privatisation Khurram Dastagir Khan, PTI lawmaker Shah Mahmood Qureshi, analyst Professor Hasan Askari Rizvi, PPP Senator Farhatullah Khan Babar and PILDAT President Ahmed Bilal Mehboob.
Khurram Dastagir Khan said the PFGs did not get proper attention during last term of the National Assembly due to lack of interest and financial support. However, the current speaker is more enthusiastic and the groups would be likely more active, he added. He acknowledged the offer made by PILDAT to facilitate the meetings of the groups on Afghanistan and India and hoped this would help in holding frequent meetings of the groups and contributing to foreign policy of the country.
Sharing his experience as a member of the Pakistan-India PFG of the 13th National Assembly, he praised PILDAT initiative of Pakistan-India Parliamentarians Dialogue in 2011-2012. He said the dialogues, which were organised by PILDAT as a part of track II diplomacy between Pakistan and India, successfully generated momentum for productive discussion on the issues which MPs, as representatives of the people, can only discuss the issues openly and candidly.
He confirmed that dialogues were necessary as, for sure, they create intra-party and intra-parliament peace lobbies. He added that dialogue between Pakistan and India also open new avenues for exchange of views on a range of issues and sometime lead to out of the box thinking.
Qureshi said the groups should be made functional as soon as possible and their meetings should be held on a regular basis. He said that issues of extremism between Pakistan and the United Sates were positively addressed by the groups during his tenure as foreign minister. The groups in Pakistan are new and lack proper support and funding. Beside, these groups are not promoted to the level which is required. He shared that the groups promote people-to-people contacts and tend to positively influence the relations with other countries.
Prof Rizvi said Pakistan-India PFGs may be a better opportunity to address all issues which are not part of the government’s composite dialogue. He emphasised that the lawmakers should more closely study the documents and resolutions relating to various issues between Pakistan and India so that they are able to make an informed contribution to foreign policy discourse.
Senator Babar urged the activation of the groups to claim for parliament the lost ground on foreign policy turf.
