LAHORE, March 31: Pakistan will not be the next target of the United States as the latter has full control over the policies of the former, says Air Marshal Asghar Khan.

“As the US is not threatened by Pakistan, it need not to attack the subservient country,” Mr Khan told a questioner during a press conference here on Monday.

Statements of US ambassador Nancy Powell regarding infiltration into Kashmir and that Pakistan was a platform for terrorists were aimed at pleasing the Indian authorities, he said, rejecting the assertion that these were meant for creating an atmosphere for attacking the only nuclear power in the Muslim world.

Asked if the rallies being organized by the religious parties alliance —- MMA —- could help diminish the US influence over Pakistan’s policies, he replied in the negative. However, he said the MMA was doing a good job by providing the masses with a platform to vent their anger over the issue.

He did no agree with the assertion that the MMA had been brought to the fore by the establishment.

“They (MMA) have not got even one percent more votes than its components had been bagging in the past. They got more seats this time only because these parties did not let division of their vote bank.”

Commenting on the formation of the National Security Council, Mr Khan, who is patron of the Qaumi Jamhoori Party, said the body would not be different from the defence committee of the cabinet if its role was kept advisory as was announced by the authorities concerned.

However, what would be unique (in the NSC) is that the chief of army staff, who is constitutionally a subordinate to the prime minister, will be chairing the meeting as superior to the latter, he added.

He urged Gen Pervez Musharraf to get himself elected president according to the provisions of the Constitution. He believed that parliamentarians would vote for him for the sake of political stability.

He argued that the president should be empowered under 58-2(b) clauses of the Constitution, saying it would create a mechanism of checks and balances in the governance system.

Expressing his reservations about the allocation of development funds for parliamentarians, Mr Khan termed it political bribery and a ploy against the district governments system (introduced by his slain son Omar ASghar Khan as the minister for local bodies).

He said the MPs, whose main task was legislation, did not want lose their hold over local politics and they were forcing the authorities to abolish the local councils system in vogue.

Asked about the progress in the case of Omar’s murder, he said the Sindh High Court had recently passed a decree, directing the authorities concerned to hold an inquiry into the incident.

He, however, criticized the judicial system, saying it was too slow to redress grievances of the people.

“No progress has been made in the murder case of Mir Murtaza Bhutto despite the passage of seven years,” he regretted.

Earlier, a meeting of the central executive committee of the QJP passed a resolution, condemning the US-Britain aggression against Iraq and demanded immediate end to the war imposed on innocent Iraqi people to seize oil resources of that country.

Urging the UNO, the EU, the NAM, the OIC, the Arab League and other world bodies to play their role in checking expansionist designs of the United States, it demanded a solid line of action to safeguard the integrity and security of weak nations in future.