Parliamentary body summons foreign, defence secretaries

Parliamentary body summons foreign, defence secretaries

The highest forum, the Parliamentary Committee on National Security, ultimately moved on Friday to take up the controversial memogate scandal, summoning the Secretary Foreign Affairs and Secretary Defence in its next sitting to brief the panel on this diplomatically
and politically distressing development.

Chairman National Security Committee, Senator Raza Rabbani, said that there should be no political point scoring on the memo issue as the matter is under investigation.

The meeting of the Parliamentary Committee on National Security was held in the Parliament House with Senator Raza Rabbani in the chair to discuss the issue of memogate allegedly written by Pakistan Ambassador to United States, Hussain Haqqani, (now resigned)
on behalf of President Asif Ali Zardari.

According to the memogate, Asif Ali Zardari warned US about Pakistan Army activities and sought its assistance against the alleged military takeover. The memo was addressed to the US Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen.

After the meeting, Raza told the media that strategy to precede the issue in future will be made after briefing by defence and foreign secretaries.

He added that committee has no concern whatever forum discuss or investigate the matter. “The committee will examine the matter in its own way,” he said.  

Haqqani did positive thing by coming back in the country and tendering resignation besides presenting himself for investigation after the controversy erupted, he added.

The committee also sought explanation from Secretary Defence about the statement of Air Chief Marshal, Rao Qamar Suleman, declaring Pakistan’s FATA policy as ineffective. The committee was of the view that a controversial statement from the person, who is
holding such a key post, could not be left unnoticed. 

It is pertinent to mention here that Rao Qamar Suleman made a statement in Dubai during air chief marshals’ meeting that there had been only ten per cent success in the air strikes in the tribal areas and dialogue is only solution.

The Air Chief Marshal said that the Pakistan Air Force had made 3300 air strikes in the tribal areas and dropped 10,600 bombs, but had realized only ten per cent successes.

The committee also decided to hold a special meeting for discussing the worse law and order situation in Balochistan after the matter raised by its Baloch members Mir Israr Ullah Zehri and Senator Abdul Rahim Mandokhel. 

Raza Rabbani informed the media that officials of the provincial government, police, and other security agencies would be summoned to brief the committee about the actual situation. “Balochistan issue needs urgent attention,” he maintained.

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Posted by Faisal Farooq on Nov 25 2011. Filed under Pakistan. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry