Foreign policy controversy

An unseemly controversy has broken out regarding the country's foreign policy. It all started when some cabinet ministers criticised the handling of policy on Kashmir by the Foreign Office. Minister for Human Rights Shireen Mazari in particular had some trenchant things to say on the matter on the floor of the National Assembly last week. Asserting that she has followed the Kashmir issue for four decades, Shireen Mazari criticised the performance of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Kashmir, saying it had failed to follow the forward looking vision of Prime Minister Imran Khan. She advocated sending parliamentary delegations abroad since the Foreign Office had missed several opportunities. During the weekly media briefing on February 6, 2020, the spokesperson for the Foreign Office defended the Ministry of Foreign Affairs by stressing that it has always taken the core issue of Kashmir very seriously and was considering a number of legal and political aspects, including taking the matter to the International Court of Justice. The spokesperson pointed out that the vision of Pakistan's foreign policy is formulated at the leadership level by the government and is carried out under the direction of the foreign minister by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The spokesperson went on to point out that the observation that the Foreign Office is not taking the cause of Jammu and Kashmir seriously is not accurate. Pakistan and its Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the spokesperson added, have never been shy or negligent towards this core issue and were dedicated to taking it forward. As soon as India took the illegal and unilateral actions on August 5, 2019 (the abrogation of Kashmir's special status), a Kashmir cell was established in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. It is a multi-agency unit dedicated to monitoring the evolving situation in occupied Jammu and Kashmir and to take forward the strategy articulated by the government, steered by the foreign minister and executed by over 100 diplomatic missions of Pakistan all over the world. Taking forward the strategy on the Kashmir cause is not an event, it is a process. All aspects of the Jammu and Kashmir dispute are taken forward in accordance with the UN Security Council Resolutions. The spokesperson was asked to spell out the options available with the Foreign Office, since so far, it had failed to persuade Saudi Arabia to hold an emergency meeting on Kashmir. She was reminded of Prime Minister Imran Khan's comments in Malaysia last week where he had complained about disunity in the Organisation of Islamic Conference (OIC), which had failed to meet on Kashmir. In response, the spokesperson defended the OIC's role and recounted the process over the years whereby it had addressed the Kashmir issue.

The whole affair is surprising in some respects and raises some searching questions begging to be asked. Surprising because it is unprecedented that cabinet ministers should criticise their own government or its own foreign ministry in parliament or even in the public space. Normally, such discussions are held in cabinet and all decisions of the cabinet are considered binding on all cabinet members. But the really serious questions that beg for an answer include why Pakistan, its prime minister and foreign ministry's efforts have failed to find resonance in the world at large, at the UN, in the west, and even in the Muslim world. Tentatively, it could be argued that Kashmir as one of the oldest extant disputes on the agenda of the UN is suffering from sympathy fatigue. Second, India has promoted itself in recent years as the next poster boy of development in the developing world. The opportunities this presents have persuaded a long line of countries, companies and entities to join the queue before India's door. The west and important countries of the Muslim world are included in this company. Without doubting the government's and the ministry of foreign affairs' efforts in this regard, perhaps the focus should shift from within (implying fissures within the government) to without, meaning the world in the 21st century and its geopolitical landscape.