Pakistan: Adjournment Motion moved in Senate over 1.5 billion dollars aid

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An adjournment motion was moved in the Senate today to discuss whether the 1.5 billion dollars bailout by an un-named Muslim country was related to the change in the country’s policy of neutrality over Syria. The adjournment motion was moved by PPPP Senator Farhatullah Babar.

In a statement he said that the claim of national debts coming down by 800 billion rupees as a result of rupee rising in value against dollar following the 1.5 billion dollars bail out was most welcome but, ‘we need to be reassured there is no quid pro quo and trade off with a critical area of our foreign policy’.

Finance Minister Ishaq Dar stated Wednesday that a Muslim country gave Pakistan 1.5 billion dollars towards ‘Pakistan Development Fund’ but the donor country did not wish to be identified.

The secrecy raises questions. We need to know when was the Pakistan Development Fund set up and for what purpose and what happened to a similar fund set up sometime back by the Friends of Democratic Pakistan. We also need to know whether it is outright grant, or aid or loan and on what terms and conditions, he said. There is no such thing as free lunch and relations between countries were guided by their national interests and based on a quid pro quo. There are issues that cannot be shrugged off, he said. He said that Syria had the potential of becoming Afghanistan of the Middle East and warned against any misadventure by changing course disregarding the catastrophic experience in Afghanistan next door. It would be a mistake of monumental proportions if we allowed ourselves to be sucked into the web of regional power politics in the Middle East.

He said that the alarm bells first rang by reports late last month that a Muslim country was in talks with Pakistan for supply of anti-aircraft and anti tank rockets to Syrian rebels.

He said that doubts linger as the joint statement issued after the visit of a dignitary from Middle East last month called for regime change in Syria as the joint statement called for the “formation of a transitional governing body with full executive powers enabling it to take charge of the affairs of the country”. He also disputed the assertion of the Advisor Foreign Affairs Sartaj Aziz that this formulation in the joint statement was in accordance with the recent Geneva 1 Accord over Syria.

He said that the Geneva 1 joint communiqué stressed ending violence and human rights abuses and “launch of a Syrian led political process leading to a transition that meets the legitimate aspirations of the Syrian people”. There is a sea of difference between a ‘political process leading to a transition’ as envisaged in Geneva 1 and ‘formation of transitional governing body with full executive powers’ as stated in the joint statement and there is an ominous ring to it, he said.