RAWALPINDI: A Foreign Office spokesman here today [Jan 22] denied that Pakistan was interested with four other Middle East countries in “forming security arrangements in the Persian Gulf area” to fill a gap created by Britain’s withdrawal from the Gulf.

“The Pakistan Government has no such arrangement under consideration,” the spokesman said when his attention was drawn to a statement by the US Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Mr Rostow.

In an interview broadcast by the Voice of America, Mr Rostow had named five Middle East countries including Pakistan, which, he said, were interested in forming a security arrangement to fill the gap created by Britain’s withdrawal from the Persian Gulf.

While other countries named by Mr Rostow will speak for themselves, it is apparent that Pakistan cannot be expected to join any new security arrangement when its views on the existing security pacts — CENTO and SEATO — of which it is a member, are already known. Pakistan’s declared position regarding both these pacts is that it would not do much harm to anybody if they were done away with. The basis of Pakistan’s foreign policy, as has been explained by President Ayub Khan in unambiguous terms, continues to be “that we stay within our means, political as well as economic”.

Published in Dawn, January 23rd, 2018