The 72nd Session of the United Nations General Assembly is in progress in New York and the Pakistani delegation here has some tough job on its hand to do, obviously including the routine anti-India propaganda.
So the prime minister of Pakistan
is busy spewing venom against India in New York where he is leading his country's
delegation to the UNGA while ministers and senior officials of his government back
home in Islamabad are complementing his efforts.
And their efforts are based on
negating two highly hostile perceptions about Pakistan, especially with the
Donald Trump presidency in America - one, that it is a safe terror haven and the other,
that trusting Pakistan in Afghanistan affairs have been counter-productive and
it is better to go with India.
So, Pakistan's prime minister Shahid
Khaqan Abbasi is busy telling the world community and more importantly to the
US that how India is an existential threat for Pakistan and it is rather a
terror victim with an impressive track record in fighting and eliminating
terrorists and the US declaring it a safe haven for terrorists is unjustified,
even if he wasn't given a chance to have one-on-one meeting with Donald Trump.
The fact is, Trump has not met
a Pakistani prime minister, be it Abbasi or his predecessor Nawaz Sharif, so
far in his presidency and it is a telling sign that Pakistan has lost its
credibility in Washington.
Like Nawaz Sharif was
humiliated at the US-Arab-Islamic Summit in Riyadh in May this year, Donald
Trump's first major interaction with the Muslim nations of the world, this time,
too, the Pakistani prime minister met the same fate. Reportedly, Trump refused
to meet Abbasi as 'he was too busy'.
Abbasi then had to settle down
on a meeting with US Vice-President Mike Pence where, as per Pakistani claims, the
two sides agreed to remain engaged "to achieve shared objectives of peace,
stability and economic prosperity in the region." Also, Abbasi told
yesterday, in another boastful claim, that Trump thought positively on
Pakistan's role in the war against terror, refuting claims of downward spiral
in US-Pakistan ties.
While the truth is, the US is
disappointed and angry over Pakistan’s double-dealings, the country that has
been a major recipient of US financial aid, over $15 billion in just last five
years. While unveiling his government's Afghanistan centric South Asia policy
last month, Trump had slammed Pakistan and had warned that the US would no
longer be silent about Pakistan’s double-dealings and had demanded that
Pakistan’s attitude of doublespeak had to change immediately.
Abbasi, reportedly, also
complained to the US, in fact, in his meeting with Mike Pence about US policy
change on Afghanistan which seeks greater Indian role in Afghanistan rebuilding
process, something that Pakistan believes is hostile to its interests in the
region. And today, he went on to say that Pakistan sees 'zero role for India in
Afghanistan and will never accept India politically or militarily engaged in
Afghanistan'.
Repeating Pakistan's rant on Kashmir,
an integral part of India where Pakistan is fuelling terror and separatism, that
India is suppressing the freedom struggle of the Kashmiris, Abbasi, after a
long time, again took the line that Pakistan has developed tactical nuclear
weapons to take on the Indian threat. Pakistan had left the practice of issuing
hollow nuclear threats to India after the surgical strike last September in
Pakistan-occupied-Kashmir that left Pakistan's ruling elite humiliated and
divided.
Back in Pakistan, its
ministers and officers are busy extending helping hands to their prime
minister.
Its Foreign Office is
repeating the routine Pakistani propaganda that "India is involved in funding terrorism in Pakistan"
with a new vigour. Apart from blaming India for fomenting terror in its provinces
including the restive Balochistan province, Pakistan is also blaming India to fund
the anti-Pakistan campaign by Baloch activists in Geneva while the reality is
the world community has now started accepting Pakistan's atrocities in
Balochistan and Pakistan-occupied-Kashmir.
The country is also taking on other
countries like Japan that endorse the Indian viewpoint that Pakistan is a
terror sponsor nation. The Indo-Japan joint statement last week during Japanese
prime minister Shinzo Abe's India visit had denounced Pakistan as a country
harbouring terrorists.
Yesterday, Pakistan's Defence
Minister Khurram Dastagir Khan accused India of trying to sabotage the
China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), a $50 Billion Chinese investment that
passes through Pakistan-occupied-Kashmir, legally an Indian territory. The same
minister had last week boasted that it was not Pakistan's job to satisfy the
US. And only a week later, the Pakistani prime minister is trying to woo the US
administration in the US.
©SantoshChaubey
