Pakistan Tehrik-e-Insaf (PTI) was taken aback the way PML-N President Nawaz Sharif was trying to toe the US line in case of India and other global issues, sending a confused message to the countrymen particularly his supporters.
Dr Shireen M. Mazari, PTI vice president for policy planning, national security and foreign affairs, said: "PTI seeks peace in the neighbourhood but a durable peace can only be possible when the real political conflicts that exist between the two neighbours are resolved through dialogue."
She said PTI feels the security route to cooperation similar to the origins of the EU in the European Coal and Steel Community is the best way to détente and lasting peace in the region since it focuses on conflict resolution not conflict management. "It is clear that PML-N continues to see its popularity falling rapidly...its leader has shown a desperation in trying to gain US support as an alternative to the support of his own people," she added.
Shireen said that President Zardari has openly been following US diktat in the foreign policy realms, including relations with India - one aspect of which has been the continuing delays on dealing with India's increasing theft of Pakistani waters. "It is Zardari regime which bestowed the highest number of US citizens with Pakistan's national state awards and now, Nawaz Sharif has also decided to jump on the US bandwagon in the vain hope that that would bring him closer to power again in Pakistan," she maintained.
She further said that most recently this was reflected in a speech, made by Nawaz Shrif at a SAFMA function in Lahore in the presence of visiting Indians. "His efforts to create a new perspective on India and his strange response to a critique of it by a major media chief, have only resulted in absurdities and confusion as well as creating a total backtracking of some of Muslim League policies," she said.
Shireen went on saying that Nawaz Shairfi' claim that had he been allowed to complete the Motorway up to Tashkent, India had taken the same Motorway to Kolkata, and trade would have been carried out while Kashmir issue would have been resolved automatically. The above mentioned desire of Sharif, she added, is a clear indication of his eagerness to appeal the US, forgetting what the Kashmir dispute is all about.
"Factually, the Kashmir dispute is neither about trade or commerce nor about mere territory. It is about the right of the Kashmiri people to self-determination - a principle enshrined in the UN Charter and reiterated in UN Security Council resolutions on Kashmir. Additionally, Pakistan's legitimacy as a party to the dispute also rest on UNSC resolutions. To reduce resolution of the dispute simply to increased trade and business is to insult the Kashmiri martyrs who have generation after generation laid down their lives for their right to self determination," she added.
Shireen said that Nawaz Sharif seems confused over the culture and heritage of Pakistan as a whole since he declared at the SAFMA function that Pakistanis and Indians "are members of the same society and share the same background, culture and even the dishes and vegetables.'
She questioned why Sharif did not form a Kargil Commission when he was still in power as he had ample opportunity when he went to Washington in July or when he came back and ordered the withdrawal. "He was, as he liked to claim, a PM with "a heavy mandate". After all, the Indians formed their Commission immediately. Sharif's present ranting against the military are sounding more like attempts to please the US rather than anything substantive," she added. Shireen concluded by saying that perhaps Nawaz Sharif needs to revisit facts on some of the sensitive issues he has held forth on recently in a state of confused pandering to US diktat, which will neither result in regional stability nor will it allow those who are losing popular support to come to power.
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