June 15 , 2016
News
Sherry concerned over absence of ‘local lobbyist’ in Washington
PPP leader says current govt has left a leadership vacuum
By: NNIISLAMABAD: Thanks to the confusion in government circles Pakistan is in a state of “strategic drift”, Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) Vice President Senator Sherry Rehman said in a statement on security challenges mounting in the region and beyond.
“After the martyrdom of Pakistan's Major Ali Jawad Changezi in border shelling from Afghanistan, I hope the government has finally woken up from its policy slumber of three years to understand that this muddle-through is not going to get the country through multiple crises,” she said.
“In Washington, the government has still not appointed a local lobbyist after three years of an alarming slide in relations with the United States, always mistaking a cordial meeting for an uptick in ties, while other countries like India have four such companies formally in place, taking New Delhi's message relentlessly to Congress.”
She revealed that the PPP government not only had a full time lobbyist, but that after 2012 “sent a daily reminder to Congress of the price we pay on terrorism on our own, enumerated on Pakistan's flag via our lobbyists once we realised that there is need for Pakistan's sacrifices and narrative to be amplified, no matter what our resources”.
The Senator said that they shut down bases that former president General (retired) Pervez Musharraf had granted to the US, but also took the relationship out of a disastrous precipice after our soldiers were martyred at Salala.
“It took a constant daily engagement and coordinated face-down of challenges from Islamabad to Washington, so I shudder to think who is doing this now. Who is convening the crucial regular meetings of the top civilian and military brass to coordinate our mission outputs and signal and manage change in Pakistan's policies?” she questioned.
She said then President Zardari or Prime Minister Gilani did it every six weeks and no one would leave the meeting until they had pathways to equitable solutions acceptable to parliament as well as the Pakistani military, which was operationally active with American and ISAF forces across Pakistan’s western border.
“The current government has left a leadership vacuum at the core of our policymaking infrastructure, with no foreign minister, and no empowered cabinet members other than two to steer this ship. Tactical or diplomatic reactionism is neither a policy nor a plan, neither does it serve the country in need of structural shifts,” she added.
Courtesy www.dailytimes.com.pk