ISLAMABAD: Elated by the end of one of the two long protest sit-ins in the capital, the government and a helpful opposition agreed in the National Assembly on Thursday to launch a diplomatic offensive against India over recent deadly border clashes as they also sought internal peace by appealing for the lifting of the other sit-in.

The house unanimously adopted a government-moved resolution strongly condemning what it called “unprovoked and indiscriminate ceasefire violations” by Indian forces after Adviser to Prime Minister on Foreign Affairs and National Security Sartaj Aziz informed it that the government would send out delegations of parliament members and former ambassadors to draw world attention to the violations by India.

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Mr Aziz was more outspoken in a speech later in the Senate where he accused the Indian government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi of seeking to “swallow” Kashmir by ending the formerly princely state’s special constitutional status and dividing it in three parts.

But he said “our guess is that whatever they do, this will not happen” and that such moves would not affect the long-standing United Nations resolutions which envisage a plebiscite to let Kashmir people decide whether to join Pakistan or India.

“What is their game plan to swallow Kashmir, we are taking steps to counter it,” he said.

In a speech in the National Assembly earlier, Leader of Opposition Khursheed Ahmed Shah called for sending “most powerful delegations” to other countries.

In a sign of a prior understanding between two sides, Mr Aziz, reading from prepared notes, announced the government decision to do just the same, while winding up a three-day debate over the violations along the LoC dividing Kashmir and what Pakistan calls the working boundary between the Jammu region of Indian-held Kashmir and Pakistan’s eastern districts of Sialkot and Narowal.

The adviser said 14 innocent civilians had been killed and 65 others wounded on the Pakistani side since the violations erupted on Sept 30, for which both sides blame each other for starting them.

Several lawmakers from both sides of aisle, in their speeches on Thursday, had demanded that Pakistan respond strongly to Indian Defence Minister Arun Jaitley who, while referring to India’s larger conventional strength, had said in a television interview on Tuesday that Pakistan would face an “unaffordable” cost and that it would “feel the pain of this kind of adventurism”.

The soft-spoken Mr Aziz did not disappoint them, and spoke with some fervour, saying he would like to remind the Indian minister that a combination of religious warmth and patriotic spirit could cause a “whirlwind” in which a company led by Pakistani Major Raja Aziz Bhatti could stop an Indian brigade.

(That was a reference to the September 1965 war between India and Pakistan during which Pakistan army’s Major Bhatti, a company commander in the Burki area of Lahore sector, is said to have stayed with his forward platoon under incessant Indian artillery and tank fire for five days and nights to defend the strategic BRB canal before falling to a tank shell, for which he was awarded posthumously with the country’s highest gallantry award of Nishan-i-Haider).

In an earlier speech in the National Assembly, Defence Minister Khwaja Mohammad Asif said Pakistani armed forces were prepared to defend the country’s western and eastern borders and would “respond fully” if a situation arose.

However, he said that as nuclear powers, India and Pakistan should act with “greater responsibility”.

In its resolution, the National Assembly expressed its appreciation and admiration “for the courage and bravery of the armed forces” and lauded “the restraint exercised by them in the face of Indian provocations”.

The house expressed its concern for what it called plight of Kashmiri people “living under Indian occupation and non-fulfilment of their right to self-determination”.

It called upon the government that while pursuing bilateral dialogue, to request the United Nations and the international community to “play their due role in settling the Kashmir dispute in accordance with the wishes of the people of Kashmir”, noting that this dispute remained the “main bone of contention in Pakistan-India relations and a constant source of tension”.

Commending the work of the United Nations Military Observers’ Group in India and Pakistan — which New Delhi says has lost its relevance after the 1972 Shimla accord between India and Pakistan to settle the dispute through bilateral dialogue — the house emphasised what it called “the need to make its role more effective in terms of ceasefire monitoring and reporting”.

In his speech in the Senate, Mr Aziz said he had told UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon in a letter that the process of bilateral efforts was not moving forward, and also referred to briefings given to the envoys of the five permanent member countries of the UN Security Council and other ambassadors.

“The effects of these efforts have begun appearing,” he said without elaborating.

He was speaking in response to concern voiced by Senator Farhatullah Babar of the opposition Pakistan People’s Party about a federal minister’s remark in the National Assembly on Monday that any country’s nuclear capabilities were not meant to be kept only in cold storage but could be used in time of need.

“Are we brandishing nuclear weapons,” Mr Babar asked.

Mr Aziz sought to cool the senator’s concern by pointing out that States and Frontier Regions Minister Abdul Qadir Baloch had made it clear in the lower house that he did not mean giving a threat.

IMRAN URGED TO FOLLOW QADRI: In the National Assembly, the defence minister endorsed opposition leader Khursheed Shah’s speech in the house commending Allama Tahirul Qadri for terminating the 69-day ‘dharna’ of his Pakistan Awami Tehreek (PAT) on Tuesday night and appealing to Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) chairman Imran Khan to follow suit by winding up his party’s sit-in and come back to the house with more than 30 members who have sent resignations to Speaker Sardar Ayaz Sadiq.

NA TAKES Diwali HOLIDAY: On the demand of Mr Shah, the house speaker allowed Friday to be holiday for the National Assembly for the first time to mark the Hindu festival of Diwali — which actually happened on Thursday — before adjourning the house until 4pm on Monday.

Published in Dawn, October 24th, 2014