Pakistan Muslim League (PML-Q) Secretary General Mushahid Hussain Sayed on Saturday termed US drone strikes in tribal areas as attack on the country's sovereignty.
Speaking at a seminar on "Peace exploration from Middle East to South Asia," jointly organised by International Islamic Centre, Lahore, and International Islamic Media Forum, he said that the US should immediately halt drone attacks inside Pakistan as it would be counter-productive vis-à-vis international war against terrorism.
He called upon the US to resolve the long-standing dispute of Kashmir for bringing permanent peace in the region. He said that Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Iran and other Muslim countries should send their delegations to US President Barack Hussain Obama to convince him that the US policies against the Muslim countries were not carved taking into account the ground realities.
He recalled that Israeli Prime Minister Prime Minister Ehud Olmert stopped former US President Bush during a conference, and demanded not to support the United Nations resolutions meant for harming Israel. "Israel dominates the US congress as Jews spend huge amount of money in lobbying for congressmen to have complete hold on the US politics and administration," he added.
Dearth of unity among the Islamic countries was a reality as three conferences were called to take some steps in favour of Palestinian people, but the participants were not even able to decide the amount of aid to be dispatched for the Palestinians living in the valley of death, he added. Mushahid said Muslims should resist the nefarious anti-Islam designs and not to become sacrificial goats, and added that due to existence of Pakistan the issue of Kashmir was still alive at international level.
"If Pakistan had not supported Afghanistan, defeat of Soviet Union was difficult. It is Pakistan due to which an Islamic country like Bosnia came into existence in the heart of Europe," he said. The US policy of huge troops deployment in Iraq and Afghanistan had completely failed, he said, adding that its after-effects would come to fore in the next 15 to 20 years.
He recalled that after attacking Iraq, former US president Bush had told the then British Prime Minister Tony Blair that the next target would be Pakistan, Syria, Iran and Saudi Arabia, but Obama prevailed over Bush in the elections turning the table. Speaking on the occasion, Central Information Secretary of Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz) Ahsan Iqbal said that an independent judiciary was intrinsic to the rule of law, human rights protection and development of the economy.
"Democracy can be strengthened with the judgement. No nation can progress with a toothless judiciary," he added. He stressed the need for adopting realistic approach instead of being overwhelmed by the emotions, saying that the US was facing a deficit of three trillion dollars due to madness of former president Bush. Senator Khalid Mehmood Soomro said that international conspiracy was being hatched against Muslims and the saddening aspect of the state of affairs was that the Muslims were being pitched against their own brethren.
He said the US, India and Israel were the world's biggest terrorist states, and questioned that had the US ever raised any voice against the injustice the Palestinians were facing. "The US is not interested in that. It only wants to weaken Muslims," he added.