Daily Times

Well done, Prime Minister Imran Khan for your decision to release Indian pilot Wing Commander AbhinandanVarthaman on Friday as a peace gesture to India. It has been rightly and widely lauded on social media across the globe. In fact, your gesture moved millions of hearts.

Through this act of kindness during the prevailing Pakistan-India crisis, Khan surely emerged victorious and showed true statesmanship which would surely earn him many raves in the days to come.

The way he handled the crisis was exemplary which surely lifted the masses of the country because of the compassionate and mature response from the Pakistani leadership which was even commended by the biggest critics of the PTI-led government.

Nobody could deny the fact that India has been the aggressor during the entire episode when they started it in the aftermath of Pulwama attack. But through this action, the PM actually bowled out Modi’s government which was up for this misadventure ahead of upcoming general elections in India. De-escalation is truly the need of the hour.

The prevailing Pakistan-India crisis proved that Pakistan had the upper hand when it comes to diplomacy.

However, it was followed by a terrible decision of boycotting OIC’s Council of Foreign Ministers session as Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi announced itrecently.

Foreign policy makers should have known that disinviting India wasn’t possible and that it would have been consistent for us to be at every platform for talks

The decision was taken after a joint resolution passed by the parliament, which demanded that Pakistan should refrain from attending the OIC meeting.

Unfortunately, for many decades, Pakistan’s foreign policy had been the victim of third forces.

It is better for Pakistan to fully participate in the OIC meeting and all other forums and raise its voice about cross-border violations by India. What Pakistan could have done is attend it on ministerial level and lodge protest over the presence of Indian delegation.

In the remainder of the session, Pakistan could have emphasised and raised the issue of India’s irresponsible and reckless actions for seriously harming the peace and stability of South Asia.

India’s aggression against Pakistan was completely in violation of the United Nations Charter, international law and inter-state norms.

For me, it makes no sense to boycott the OIC after releasing the Indian pilot for it would have provided us the avenue to start dialogue with India and also to put up our case globally in a better and effective manner.

By boycotting the OIC’s Council of Foreign Ministers meeting, Pakistan surely missed the opportunity to address the baseless allegations of India in the aftermath of Pulwama attack which seems to be politically motivated by the Modi administration for increasing seats in the upcoming elections.

It surely raises the question that what benefit would Pakistan gain from boycotting OIC ofwhich Pakistan is a founder member? It shows that people who are responsible for making the foreign policy of Pakistan failed to grasp this fact that we could have used OIC for peace diplomacy as well.

Foreign policy makers should have known that disinviting India wasn’t possible and that it would have been consistent for us to be at every platform for talks.

Chairman of Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) Bilawal Bhutto Zardari quite rightly stated in his tweet which stated, “Unfortunate government has decided not to attend OIC. Important international forums must be engaged at this critical time. To put Pakistan’s point of views across and expose India’s belligerence & naked aggression. Cutting your nose to spite your face is never a great strategy.”

Sahibzada Yaqoob Khan once described Foreign Office as knuckles of the government for damage repair of its foreign policy blunders. Coming back to the release of the enemy pilot, let’s remind the PM that many countrymen are languishing in our domestic jails without any due process, so, why not showing some nice gestures to them as well?

The writer is an investigative journalist and former web editor, at Daily Times

Published in Daily Times, March 3^rd 2019.