Pakistan Muslim League-Quaid (PML-Q) Secretary General and Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Senator Mushahid Hussain Syed urged the government to rise to the occasion and strengthen the Armed Forces morale and nation's resolve by calling a joint session of parliament to build a national consensus on anti-terror policy above party lines.
He strongly condemned statements emanating from Kabul that blame Pakistan for problems created by their own wrong policies. Talking to the media here on Tuesday, he said it was an interesting coincidence that in an apparently synchronised move, both Kabul and New Delhi have decided to suspend talks with Pakistan on allegations that have no evidence or rationale about Pakistan's involvement in acts of terrorism in their countries.
This statement has come at a time when Pakistan itself is the biggest victim of terrorism and countless lives of soldiers and civilians have lost in the war on terrorism and to blame Pakistan for actions which are targeting Pakistan is baseless and irresponsible.
Mushahid urged the United States, which has close ties and great influence both in Delhi and Kabul, to tell its allies to stop this rhetoric because the threat of terrorism is not country-specific but world-wide. And they should also stop looking for scapegoats for their own failure.
The only way, he said, to combat their common threat is for a collaborative response without demonising any single country. Senator Mushahid, who has recently returned from a visit of Vietnam as head of a parliamentary delegation, said that during the Vietnam war, the United States escalated the war through secret bombing of Cambodia which destabilised the region and an 'action replay' by escalating Afghan war to Fata would have similar consequences.
He also urged the US policy-makers to resist from the temptation from raising a spectre of war either in Iran or in Fata in order to influence the US presidential elections. Senator Mushahid reminded the media that in the 2004 US presidential elections, a video tape of Osama Bin Laden suddenly appeared which greatly influenced the election campaign in favour of President Bush to defeat the Democratic Party candidate.