Daily Times

Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi said on Friday both he and Prime Minister Imran Khan had told Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif all regional and global issues should be resolved through diplomacy and within the framework of international law. He said during his meeting with his Iranian counterpart, he had insisted that the tensions in the region were not in any party’s interest and assured him that Pakistan would be keen to try and lower tensions and maintain peace and stability.

It is abundantly clear that a call for restraint is sane advice. Further, when Mr Zarif visited the General Headquarters for a meeting with Chief of the Army Staff Gen Qamar Javed Bajwa, he got the identical message there. Gen Bajwa was reported as saying: “War is not in anyone’s interest. All sides need to make efforts to keep conflict away from the region”.

For his part, the Iranian minister said he had the satisfaction that Pakistan understood Iran’s position and was convinced that there was no justification for the pressure being exerted on Iran by the United States.

Mr Zarif, on his 10th visit to Pakistan since assuming office, explained Iranian perspective on the evolving crisis in the Persian Gulf, where the United States has deployed an aircraft carrier, B-52 bombers at an airbase in Qatar and F-15 jets. The United States is also reported to be planning to station thousands of soldiers in the region.

The world at large and the regional countries in particular have too much at stake to stand by as parties to the dispute practice brinkmanship. Foreign Minister Qureshi was spot on when he warned that any miscalculation by either side, even an accident, could escalate the situation to a dangerous level.

Mr Zarif said Iran would exercise utmost restraint but not allow anybody to wage economic war against it. He said sanctions against Iran amounted to “economic terrorism”.

Does the assurance suffice? Unfortunately, the actions and the rhetoric of the United States and its allies in the Middle East so far do not encourage optimism.

The one good thing about the consultation thus seems to have been the consistency between the Foreign Office and the GHQ. This might sound like something to be taken for granted but there have been reports that the civilian government and the military command did not see eye to eye on the course of action to take during the (first) Iraq war and at least one senior officer is accused of having advised the Afghan Taliban to stand their ground after they had been served the final US ultimatum following the 9/11 attacks.

Mr Zarif also had bilateral agenda to discuss including border security, linking Chah Bahar and Gwadar ports and cooperation in energy sector – all important issues but which pale into insignificance until the potentially explosive situation has been defused and some semblance of normalcy restored. *