The joint-sitting of parliament unanimously adopted the revised recommendations proposed by the Senator Rabbani-led Parliamentary Committee on National Security (PCNS). There is no doubt that there was an urgent need to revisit and stipulate the precise terms of engagement between the United States, the sole superpower and the largest bilateral disburser of grant assistance to Pakistan, and Pakistan's civilian leadership subsequent to the revelations of unwritten agreements of the Musharraf era.
These unwritten agreements epitomised the transactional nature of relations that, over time, have widened differences between the people of the two countries to such an extent that, at the present moment, there is widespread anger as well as mistrust. Americans are informed that Pakistan is receiving considerable assistance, be it for civilian purposes under the Kerry-Lugar bill or military reimbursement, under the Coalition Support Fund (CSF), to effectively combat the terrorism and fundamentalism that threatens the US.
The Pakistani public, not routinely taken into confidence by successive governments, including the present one (as indicated by US officials holding press conferences after their meeting with senior members of our executive including the President and the Prime Minister, while there is silence from our elected officials), is compelled to form conclusions of the nature of the relations from statements by US officials as well as by their actions.
The continuing drone strikes are the main source of festering public anger. This anger has spilled over into the political arena and accounts for recent surveys which place Imran Khan's Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf, strongly opposed to dependency on foreign assistance and drone strikes ahead of the ruling Awami National Party and Fazlur Rehman's JUI (F) in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
Thus as a first priority, it was critical for Pakistan to develop a bilateral relationship with the US, markedly different from the past in being non-transactional. And secondly, it is also critical to acknowledge that while Parliament can and should lay the broad contours of bilateral relations yet the details have to be worked out by the government.
These two basic principles namely the need to develop non-transactional relations as well as laying the onus of detailed foreign policy on the executive must form the basis of the way forward in bilateral relations. Three untenable proposals contained in the first draft are thankfully not in the final draft.
These include: (i) charges to be levied on transport of US/Nato/Isaf containers, which would have been lower and for a shorter duration given the expected departure of Nato troops in 2014 than the five-year 1.5 billion dollar a year grant assistance under the Kerry-Lugar bill; (ii) supporting a new fast-track process of billings and payments/reimbursements with regard to CSF and other leviable charges was unlikely to be accepted by the US as it would continue to query bills that are submitted as per its own laws; be that as it may, the unanimous approval of the PCNS recommendations by parliament coincided with reports that the Finance Ministry did receive some payment under this account; and (iii) 50 percent of US/Isaf/Nato containers to be handled through the corrupt and inept Pakistan Railways (PR) with National Logistics Cell as a beneficiary, which was seen by the private transporters as not providing them with a level-playing field.
And finally clause 2 (iii) of the approved draft states that Pakistani territory, including its airspace, shall not be used for transportation of arms and ammunition to Afghanistan. However, there is considerable literature on the web emanating from the US that indicates that the US never did use Pakistani soil or airspace to transport its military hardware to Afghanistan.
To conclude, the parliament's approved document focuses on platitudes and while it correctly argues that the "relationship with the US should be based on mutual respect for the sovereignty, independence and territorial integrity of each other," yet it unfortunately fails to lay the groundwork for a workable non-transactional relationship.