Pakistan's Foreign policy shift

EDITORIAL

By joining the group of countries at an international conference called by Iran at Tehran to support the Syrian government and seeking no foreign intervention in Syria, Pakistan has not only ended months of ambiguity over the crisis in the Middle East but also taken a calculated risk of annoying the United States and some of its pro-West friends like Turkey and Saudi Arabia. About 25 countries attended the moot at Tehran and only three of them, including Pakistan, nominated their foreign minister to represent them. Others sent either their envoys or their ambassadors in Tehran. Pakistan also took a firm stand on the issue as Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar enunciated in no unequivocal terms that the international community must respect Syria’s sovereignty, independence and territorial integrity as any intervention would further complicate an already very complex situation by endangering peace in the region. “Syria needs political space to find a peaceful solution and reestablish its societal equilibrium by engaging all sides. Syria must forge its own destiny in accordance with the aspirations of its people,” Ms Khar said. She used the Tehran meeting to remind the world that the conflict in Syria was entering a dangerous phase with al-Qaeda trying to benefit from the instability there. Besides Pakistan, representatives from Russia, China, Belarus, Mauritania, Indonesia, Kyrgyzstan, Georgia, Turkmenistan, Benin, Sri Lanka, Ecuador, Afghanistan, Algeria, Iraq, Zimbabwe, Oman, Venezuela, Tajikistan, India, Kazakhstan, Armenia, Nicaragua, Cuba, Sudan, Jordan, Tunisia and Palestine attended the conference. Western countries backing rebels had dismissed the Tehran meeting as an attempt to divert world attention from the bloody events in Syria. Islamabad’s participation in the moot substantiates the fact that Pakistan’s foreign policy has shifted eastwards and it is now focusing on enhancing relations with the countries in the region and the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation. The participation of India and Sri Lanka in the moot confirms the anti-West sentiment of the South Asian states because the feelings in Bangladesh are also not hidden either. What polarizes the world in two camps is the participation of all the SCO states, which include Central Asian Republics, at the meeting. No doubt Pakistan’s new foreign policy now has a different pattern and this paradigm shift is manifest since the Pakistan People’s Party-led coalition government took over in March 2008. It is under the new policy that Pakistan has resisted all the American pressure on Pak-Iran gas pipelines project which is now in an advanced stage of execution. Pakistan has for decades been a staunch western supporter but always got a rebuff at crunch times more particularly when the western power had to choose between New Delhi and Islamabad. By making a foreign policy shift and by attending the Iran-sponsored moot, Pakistan has taken a courageous and principled stand.