April 3, 2003	Thursday	Muharram 30, 1424

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ISLAMABAD, April 2: After a marathon five-day fiery debate, the ruling and opposition parties in the Senate on Wednesday unanimously passed only a mild, compromise resolution, voicing “shock and dismay” at the 14-day-old US-led invasion of Iraq.

As the US-British forces reported more advance towards the Iraqi capital Baghdad and on other battle-fronts, the resolution “strongly” deplored what it called the use of “indiscriminate firepower” against civilians and urged the UN Security Council to take an immediate initiative to stop hostilities.

Both sides of the political divide in the 100-seat upper house expressed satisfaction at a consensus draft after three days of wrangling over the words of its text, and an apparently happy Foreign Minister Khurshid Mahmud Kasuri called for a bipartisan approach to foreign policy in the future.

But the resolution was a far cry from the sound and fury of five days of an opposition-called debate that was marked by demands ranging from a strong condemnation of the invasion, pullout of invaders and a boycott of US and British goods.

In their original draft, the opposition parties had sought to condemn the invasion and demand an immediate halt to the war and withdrawal of the allied forces.

But the final four-paragraph document passed on Wednesday seemed more close to the stance taken by Prime Minister Zafarullah Khan Jamali’s government to only deplore — rather than condemn — the invasion by Pakistan’s close allies in the US-led war against terrorism.

NO IMPLICATIONS FOR GOVERNMENT: The resolution, which carries only moral and political force and no legal implication for the government, said: “The Senate of Pakistan expresses its shock and dismay on the attack by the US, British and allied forces against Iraq in clear violation of the UN Charter.

...strongly deplores the military attacks against Iraq by use of indiscriminate firepower against innocent Iraqi civilians and demands that the UN Security Council must take an immediate initiative to stop hostilities and seek a peaceful and diplomatic solution to the problem.

...supports the protest of all peace-loving countries of the world against this conflict and resolves that world opinion be mobilised to pressurise through all possible means the countries engaged in the conflict for immediate cessation of hostilities.

...expresses its solidarity with the people of Iraq.”

MESSAGE MORE IMPORTANT: “The message is more important than the words,” Senator Khurshid Ahmad of the MMA said before reading the resolution’s text which he had been negotiating with the government representatives.

“Some of us probably wanted it to be more hard and some wanted it to be mild,” he said of the document and called the final text “the message of the whole nation and...of this house”.

Kasuri, speaking after the unanimous yes vote for the resolution, denied opposition charges that Pakistan’s foreign policy was subservient to US interests and rejected the so-called “doctrine of preemption” Washington often cited for the use of force to disarm Iraq of its alleged weapons of mass destruction.

“The foreign policy is formulated in Pakistan, it is not formulated anywhere else,” he said.

“The government of Pakistan has followed a mature policy on the issue of Iraq,” he said and added that Islamabad had made it clear to all that it could not support war on Iraq.

“Of course, all policy decisions about the situation in Iraq were taken in Islamabad,” he said.

The minister approved of demands for support to the Iraqi people, and said: “The government and people of Pakistan are with our Iraqi brothers.”

Without engaging in verbiage, he said, Pakistan did all what other countries like China, France, Germany and Russia did — though without success — to avert the war and lately co-sponsored a Security Council resolution to resume the oil-for-food programme for Iraq.

Mr Kasuri said Pakistan also supported demands for safeguarding Iraq’s territorial integrity on which “there can be no compromise”.

He said Pakistan was planning to send relief goods to provide shelter, food and medicines to Iraqi people for which modalities were being worked out with the United Nations.

A group of Pakistani parliamentarians, who also happen to be doctors, are finalizing arrangements for sending a team to provide medical and humanitarian aid to the sick and wounded in Iraq, he said.

The minister said Pakistan was in touch with other anti-war countries to promote the concept of bilateralism to settle international issues, and assured the Senators that he would take both houses of parliament into confidence on important foreign policy matters.

“Our effort will be, and should be, to create a bipartisan spirit...,” he said only a day after the Pakistan People’s Party called for freeing the foreign policy from the control of what it called “security apparatus”.

Mr Kasuri said Pakistan’s relations with other countries were better than before, with the exception of India to which he accused of trying to exercise the option of coercive diplomacy for mobilizing the full strength of its armed forces on the Pakistani border in a standoff after an attack on the Indian parliament in December 2001.

But he said India failed in its objective in the face of unity and determination shown by Pakistan to defend itself.

Leader of the house Wasim Sajjad said the passage of a unanimous resolution after the debate, in which nearly 100 Senators spoke — including a total 14 on Wednesday — was a very good development showing Pakistani parties could rise above partisan interests on national issues.