By Raza Ruman
(Pakdestiny.com) Pakistan’s foreign policy towards the United States is at its lowest ebb since 1947 under Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif as the country’s foreign minister.
And India is taking full advantage of Pakistan’s poor relations with the US and earned dividend by giving assurance by President Obama that the member states of the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) will make India part of the group.
In its efforts to have a full-fledged and multi-layered ballistic missile defence system, India on May 15 had successfully test-fired an indigenously-developed supersonic interceptor missile, capable of destroying any incoming ballistic missile.
The US is also helping India in various nuclear and missile programs.
Where is Pakistan standing? Nawaz Sharif is even not ready to install a part-time foreign minister who could plead the country’s case internationally. Is there no one in the PML-N ranks who is fit to don this cap or Nawaz Sharif does not trust any one.
Pakistan may further lose in terms of its relations with countries like the US if Nawaz Sharif continues to cling to foreign minister’s office.
Earlier Senators criticised the premier for clinging to the foreign minister office.
Mushahid Hussain Sayed, who is also the chairman of the Senate defence committee, drew the attention of the house yesterday towards the “growing collusion between India and the US”.
The PML-Q senator said the Indian prime minister was currently in Washington where he was scheduled to address the US Congress. In the next couple of days, he said, the member states of the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) would be considering India’s request to join the group.
Alleging that Pakistan’s diplomacy had failed, Mr Sayed said that if India became a member of the NSG, it would be able to block Pakistan’s entry into the group. “We have alienated Iran and Afghanistan and the two countries are now improving their economic ties with India,” he said.
“We are going to enter an unending arms race,” he said while referring to the May 15 Indian missile test. Besides efforts to counter Indian designs through military means, he called for “cohesion” within the country, saying that India should not be in a position to take advantage of the situation inside Pakistan.
Calling for an honest review of the security and defence policies, PPP’s Farhatullah Babar said the policy of supporting non-state actors for advancement of certain security objectives had also spurred arms race in the region. “There will be no arms race in the region if foreign and security policies are formulated by civilians,” he added.
Mr Babar was of the view that the civilian and political leadership must wake up and retrieve the space in formulating security policies already dangerously ceded to the security establishment. – Pak Destiny
