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WHEN Pakistan’s de facto foreign minister Sartaj Aziz gave a rundown of his government’s success stories at a special briefing in Islamabad, a slick pamphlet listing “achievements and challenges” was conveniently at hand. The milestones on the foreign policy front since Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif stepped into office, neatly listed matters such as the arrival of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) and the European Union’s grant of a GSP Plus status.
For the occupants of the former Hotel Scheherezade, nationalised in the 1970s and since then commonly known as the Foreign Office, convincing sceptics across Pakistan, however, will be easier said than done. Sartaj Aziz, an elderly politician, carries the burden of Pakistan’s diplomacy at a time of unparalleled challenges in the nation’s history.
For reasons not entirely clear, the prime minister, whose credentials of diplomacy are far from established, has chosen not to appoint a full-time foreign minister in spite of mounting criticism. It is a rare choice with a precedent being prime minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto’s choice of retaining the foreign minister under his direct watch — a case of the late leader being intellectually far superior on world affairs than his successors including present-day ones. With the foreign ministry run by Sartaj Aziz and de facto junior foreign minister Tariq Fatemi, Pakistan’s diplomacy faces challenges which easily overshadow any real or imaginary success.
Though a side point but nevertheless a telling one, the debate over our diplomatic capacity became bogged down in a needless event. On June 18, the Foreign Office effectively got egg on its face when a condolence note on behalf of Sartaj Aziz, announced the “sad demise” of Abdul Sattar Edhi. The note was ‘recalled’ shortly thereafter.
The Foreign Office is becoming the butt of jokes.
The apparent faux pas with few parallels in recent memory followed just a rumour claiming the demise of the legendary philanthropist, who continues to bravely battle an acute kidney ailment in Karachi.
The Foreign Office has since found itself becoming the butt of jokes such as ‘is Pakistan’s foreign policy squarely driven by the social media?’ referring to unconfirmed reports of Edhi’s demise which prompted the announcement. To date, neither the individual responsible for the grave oversight has been publicly named nor publicly confirmed for having been taken to task.
Indeed, the capacity issue has other dimensions too. For a fully functional foreign ministry, anticipating trends and beginning to react to coming events in good time must figure centrally to daily work. In early June, army chief Gen Raheel Sharif appeared to have summoned key ministers to GHQ in Rawalpindi. Though a formal announcement afterwards drew attention to discussions on a range of issues, the gathering appeared to have focused in particular on circumstances surrounding Pakistan’s bid for gaining membership of the Nuclear Suppliers’ Group that regulates the international sales of equipment for civil nuclear use. The NSG saga continues to witness India and Pakistan seeking the membership side by side, with China blocking the former’s entry apparently till the latter also gains admission.
The public display of the foreign ministry visibly thrown in action followed the GHQ meeting, with a spate of confirmations of Aziz’s phone calls to one foreign leader after another. Though the Pakistan Army figures centrally on key foreign relations, the lethargy of the foreign policy figures by default continues to give space to the men in uniform.
And last but not the least, Aziz went in detail to deny the oft-repeated criticism of Pakistan’s relations with each of its neighbours except for China, having gone southwards in the past three years. Finding a resolution on the debate on this front is complex given that the pace for ties with India, Afghanistan and Iran is widely known to be set by GHQ. And yet, there is considerable ground to take the civilian establishment to task for its own set of failures.
Foreign policy of any country must be centrally tied to its domestic circumstances too. In Pakistan’s case, a failure to perk up the internal economy and build up a national consensus behind important choices has only weakened the country’s capacity on the external front. As an increasingly pauperised state — judging by conditions across Pakistan and not official claims — the country’s capacity to assert itself increasingly falls in question.
With Pakistan’s two main employers of workforce — agriculture and textiles, clearly in crisis and surrounded by mounting losses, the future of the internal and foreign policy outlook both look in doubt. In today’s day and age, any nation’s capacity to exert its influence globally, in part must be driven by its domestic conditions.
Though our leaders often bring up CPEC as a significant game changer for the future, there needs to be much more clarity on the nature of the $46bn planned investment and the management of the associated debt. Beyond the slick document listing achievements and challenges, the foreign policy establishment faces monumental odds.
The writer is an Islamabad-based journalist.
Published in Dawn, July 5th, 2016
