ISLAMABAD, Jan 26: Secretary general of Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal (MMA) and chief of JUI-F, Maulana Fazlur Rahman, said on Sunday that the sentiments of the country’s religious and political parties were identical and against the US designs on Iraq.

“The alliance will take a joint line of action on this question in Monday’s summit meeting,” he told a press conference here.

He appealed to the European Union to resist and stop the aggressive designs of the US and dissuade it from mounting an attack on Iraq.

The Maulana appreciated France, China, Saudi Arabia and, to some extent, Russia for their defiant stand on the issue and stressed upon the European community to rise to the occasion by resisting the US pressure.

The JUI leader said the Jamali government was unable to respond to the sentiments of the people on the question of attack on a brotherly Muslim state. He said Jamali’s visit to the Gulf nations was doomed to fail as it lacked the backing of other political forces.

He strongly criticised the state-controlled electronic media for projecting anti-Iraq and pro-US sentiments over television by inviting a handful of Westernised “pseudo-intellectuals” to speak day in and day out.

He termed the ongoing visit of foreign minister Khurshid Mehmud Kasuri to the US “a complete fiasco”. He criticized his statement in which he supported the US on Saddam’s question “because he was there to project his own interests concerning his chain of schools.”

He described Pakistan’s policy towards the US vis-a-vis the war on terrorism as a “total failure” as its citizens were made to register under new laws ahead of other countries.

He said: “I can say with responsibility that the prime minister is bereft of any strong stand on the question of Iraq while he is undertaking a visit to Muslim Gulf states.”

He regretted that the OIC took a weak position on the Iraq crisis, and said the pan-Islamic grouping should have held an emergency meeting to adopt a united and bold stand.

He slammed the US for bracing to destroy the whole of Iraq in its pursuit of one man (Saddam), just as it had done in case of Osama bin Laden by attacking Afghanistan.

He demanded of the UN to stop US from undertaking the “unwise step” of attacking Iraq. If Saddam was acceptable to his people, no third party or country had the right to interfere and try to topple him, he said.