ISLAMABAD: Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) Senator Farhatullah Babar said on Friday that it was frightening that both the foreign office and the parliament were in the dark about the terms of reference of the Islamic Military Alliance even three weeks after it was formally launched and member countries’ defence ministers had met to finalise its strategies and future plans in Riyadh.
He stated this on Friday while taking part in a discussion on the admitted adjournment motion moved by Senator Sherry Rehman regarding the key commitments made by the government in the coalition without taking the parliament into confidence.
Farhatullah Babar said that even though the foreign office talked about the four domains of the alliance – including military – agreed to in the coalition, it had no idea about what the real role of the military was in the whole enterprise. Reading out the statement of a foreign office spokesman, he said that the spokesman had no information.
He demanded to know who else besides the foreign office and parliament was in authority and privy to the details of engagement agreed upon in the coalition, particularly those relating to the military. He warned against consequences that could result from a military conflict in the Middle East.
“We have already burnt our fingers in the conflict in Afghanistan; let us not burn ourselves completely by engaging in a military conflict in the Middle East,” he said.
He said that according to an official statement, the purpose of the Riyadh meeting was ‘to outline the coalition’s strategy’.
He called out the haste and circumvention of rules behind the appointment of a former army chief as the head of the military coalition before two years had passed since his retirement.
He said that the foreign minister had promised to reach an agreement on the terms of reference of the alliance before Pakistan joined the alliance itself.
He said that even after the defence ministers had met and supposedly finalised the terms of the alliance, no one seemed to know what those terms were. It only strengthens the perception that invisible and un-accountable ghosts are running all policies, he said.
He said that within days of the Riyadh meeting, former Yemeni president Abdullah Saleh, who inclined towards Saudi Arabia, was brutally murdered, adding that this should serve as a warning for Pakistan before it irrevocably involved itself in a conflict in the quicksand of Middle East.
