ISLAMABAD: Senators belonging to opposition parties criticised what they described as failure of Adviser to Prime Minister on Foreign Affairs Sartaj Aziz to give satisfactory replies to their questions about Pakistan’s role in the 34-nation Saudi-led coalition and walked out of the in-camera session of the upper house on Wednesday.

“We decided to walk out of the house as we did not receive even a single reply to our specific and to-the-point questions from the adviser,” parliamentary leader of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement retired Col Tahir Mashhadi told Dawn after adjournment of the sitting.

According to Mr Mashhadi, members of the Pakhtunkhwa Milli Awami Party sitting on the treasury benches also joined the walkout, terming the briefing unsatisfactory.

The adviser had been asked by Chairman Raza Rabbani to appear before the house to respond to an adjournment motion moved by Mr Mashhadi on the Saudi-Iran tension. The chairman ordered evacuation of galleries and locking of all doors of the main hall for the in-camera discussion soon after the question hour.

Opposition boycotts Senate session over no reply to specific questions

When contacted after the sitting, a number of senators said the adviser had not provided them any additional or new information and talked about the things which they had already read in newspapers and heard in TV talk shows.

A PPP senator told reporters in a lighter vein outside the Parliament House that they could reproduce the stories filed by them on Tuesday after the in-camera briefing by the adviser to the National Assembly Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs.

The NA committee had reportedly been informed by the adviser and officials of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs that Pakistan had not committed to sending ground troops to any foreign soil and that Islamabad was looking forward to training security forces of member countries of the 34-nation coalition, providing military hardware and sharing intelligence.

Sources said that more than two dozen senators spoke when the chair allowed them to ask specific and brief questions after the adviser’s nearly one-hour policy statement.

The opposition Senators, the sources said, criticised the government for agreeing to join the 34-nation coalition to counter terrorism without taking parliament into confidence. They said that a majority of members had advised the government to remain neutral in the tussle between the two brotherly Muslim countries.

Most of the questions were related to the recent visits of Saudi foreign and defence ministers. They wanted to know if the Saudi ministers had come with a “wish list” and what explanation did they give for their reported unilateral decision to include Pakistan in the 34-nation military alliance.

Some senators wanted to know what was the objective of the formation of the coalition and against whom it had been formed? “Is it not an alliance of Sunni states as no Shia country is part of it?” asked a member.

Referring to official statements issued by the civilian and military leaderships that Pakistan would defend Saudi Arabia in case of threats to its territorial integrity, members asked the adviser what “threat” the Kingdom had been facing and from whom?

The adviser was also asked about the meeting between the Saudi defence minister and Army Chief Gen Raheel Sharif at the GHQ.

The Senators urged the government not to let anyone use the Pakistan army as a ‘rent a force’ in the dispute which had nothing to do with the country.

Published in Dawn, January 14th, 2016