LAHORE, Sept 22: Islamabad has extended de facto recognition to Tel Aviv as part of the country’s agenda which serves the foreign interest rather than the people and their aspirations. Pakistan People’s Party leader Sardar Assef Ahmad Ali said this while speaking at a seminar held at the Lahore High Court Bar Association here on Thursday.

He said it was unfortunate that such a vital decision had been taken by an individual although the sensitive issue ought to have been debated in parliament while the cabinet should have taken a decision in the best national interest.

Also a former foreign minister, he said the people of Pakistan and the Palestinian leadership stood in opposition to the decision of establishing relationship with Tel Aviv even if they were short of diplomatic ties.

He said foreign minister Khurshid Mahmood Kasuri was also responsible for such a ‘disaster’ in the foreign policy which lacked the support of the Muslim world, the country’s parliament, the cabinet and the people. This was certainly an act of betrayal.

The PPP leader said there seemed no substantial progress in promoting relationship with India and peace in the region for about two years. The two sides were only talking as a ritual without a concrete and positive outcome which was required for the political and economic benefit of the two people.

This ‘fiasco’, he said, was an evidence of a complete failure of the foreign policy which had accrued no dividends to the people and even the country’s armed forces.

Sardar Assef said the failure was because President Pervez Musharraf had been pursuing policies and tactics like all other dictators in the past.

“The same is the rubber stamp parliament, the same is the cabinet of cronies and the same is the Muslim League which comprises the same people who have been changing political loyalty since the Republican Party came into being in 1955. There has been a consistent status quo in five decades”, he said and added that the ruling PML could in no way be regarded as a political party because it comprised the people of vested interests.

The PPP leader said Gen Musharraf was also on the footsteps of the past autocrat rulers in using and misusing all state institutions for his political designs within the country and abroad to keep a facade of democracy to appease the US in particular and other western powers in general.