ISLAMABAD: Senate Chairman Raza Rabbani asked the government on Monday to brief the house on the suspended dialogue between the Afghan government and Taliban as well as the death of Mullah Omar.

Mr Rabbani directed Leader of the House Raja Zafarul Haq to ensure presence of Adviser to the Prime Minister on Foreign Affairs Sartaj Aziz in the Senate on Tuesday or Wednesday for giving a policy statement on the issues.

Also read: Mullah Omar did not die in Pakistan, say Afghan Taliban

“Call the adviser to come to the house tomorrow or a day after to give a policy statement and brief the house on 2+1+2 dialogue and related developments,” the Senate chairman asked Mr Haq.

He issued the directive after Senator Farhatullah Babar, speaking on a “matter of public importance”, questioned the “silence” of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the “institutions concerned” over the death of Mullah Omar which, according to him, was creating suspicion about Pakistan among the international community.

The talks between the Afghan government and Taliban, which began in Murree last month, have been suspended after the reports of the death of Mullah Omar last week. The term, 2+1+2 initiative, refers to the two Afghan delegations representing the government and Taliban, Pakistan and the two international backers -- US and China.

Mr Babar said the Afghan government had announced that Mullah Omar had died in 2013 and that it was informed about it by Pakistan. “Our institutions are not denying it.”

“There should have been a clear official statement about the death of Taliban chief Mullah Omar. Was the Pakistan government aware of it? Did the Afghan authorities get information about it from Pakistan,” Mr Babar said.

Earlier, he recalled, Pakistan had taken the position that it was not aware of the presence of Al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden in the country until May 2, 2011, when he was killed by US forces in an operation in Abbottabad. “Now again Pakistan is under discussion in connection with Mullah Omar’s death,” he said.

Mr Babar said if Mullah Omar had died two years ago, then who had issued the statement (on his behalf) before Eidul Fitr welcoming the Afghan talks. “Who was impersonating Mullah Omar?”

FC in Balochistan: Senator Usman Kakar of the Pakhtunkhwa Milli Awami Party accused the Frontier Corps (FC) of “interfering in provincial autonomy by intruding in the affairs of the Balochistan government”.

Initiating a debate on a motion on an agreement signed between the FC and lease owners of coal mines in Harnai and imposition of a tax on the latter by the FC, he alleged that though Chief Minister Abdul Malik Baloch had declared the agreement ‘illegal’, the FC was still collecting the tax at a rate of Rs220 per ton of coal.

The PPP’s Farhatullah Babar alleged that the FC was not obeying the directives of the provincial government and was taking “extra-constitutional steps”. He called for action against the FC officers who had been named by relatives of missing persons in the courts.

But Abdul Qayyum of the PML-N defended FC presence in Balochistan, saying that four wings of the paramilitary force had been deployed only for the security of Quetta. Previously, he said, Harnai and Loralai had been under Taliban’s occupation and the areas were taken back by the FC after more than 100 operations.

The Minister of State for Interior, Balighur Rehman, said that the Balochistan government had not lodged any complaint with the federal government about the agreement. Officials of the provincial mines department were present in the agreement signing ceremony, he added.

RULING: Raza Rabbani gave a ruling that a request by the Senate chairman or the National Assembly speaker to the government for the summoning of a joint session of parliament was binding upon the president.

He said that under the rules, he had requested the president, through the parliamentary affairs ministry, to convene a joint sitting of parliament to take up two bills, which had been passed by the Senate, but not by the National Assembly within the stipulated 90-day period.

The Senate chairman said that instead of sending its request to the president, the ministry, citing a rule from the Federal Government Rules 1973, had referred the bills to the ministries concerned for further action.

He ruled that the rules were not applicable in the situation as the bills -- the Immigration (Amendment) Bill 2013 and the Civil Servants (Amendment) Bill 2013 -- had already been passed by the Senate and had not been opposed by the government at any stage.

Published in Dawn, August 4th, 2015

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