Saturday, March 26, 2011

Pakistan slams UN resolution on Libya

ISLAMABAD: Foreign Secretary Salman Bashir expressed serious reservations over the UN resolution on Libya and termed it faulty, which allowed the West to do ‘any thing’ in other countries.

Responding to queries of members of Senate’s Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, which met on Saturday with Senator Saleem Saifullah Khan in the chair, Bashir said the Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC) and Arab League supported the UN’s Security Council resolution. “Pakistan has reservations over the resolution as the same might be applied to other countries’ case,” he maintained.

He said Pakistan was still in favour of a peaceful solution to the Libya crises without any damage to any Islamic country in the name of human rights violations, democracy and other reasons. “Pakistan looks at the situation in a broader context and believes in letting people of respective countries decide their decision,” he added.

He said that initially, draft of the resolution was made to establish a no-fly zone and protect civilian population but later it was totally changed.

He informed the committee that China opposed the UN resolution but all Gulf countries supported it. “Libya is traditionally a tribal oriented society just like Afghanistan with 82 percent literacy rate,” he said.

Bashir said Pakistan sought stability in the region and was mainly concerned for the 15,000 Pakistanis residing in Libya and about three million in the whole Gulf region.

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