ISLAMABAD: Leader of the Opposition in the National Assembly, Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan, expressed his reservations over the proceedings of the joint parliamentary session on national security on Tuesday.
Speaking to reporters after the session, the opposition leader complained that the parliament was not taken into confidence while framing guidelines and recommendations on national security.
“The opposition will not be a part of any resolution tabled in any such session,” said the Pakistan Muslim League – Nawaz (PML-N) leader.
Nisar criticised the government for keeping the Parliamentary Committee on National Security (PCNS) report “secret” and failing to give party leaders time to discuss it before tabling it in parliament.
“Many resolutions have been passed in previous joint sittings of parliament but a question mark remains on their implementation,” said Nisar.
“Even if approved…the recommendations in this resolution already exist in earlier resolutions. The government should be answerable for the implementation of these resolutions,” he added.
The opposition leader also alleged that one of the recommendations seeks to provide legal cover for foreign private security contractors, which is completely unacceptable.
Opp rejects PCNS repoNA Opposition Leader Ch Nisar Ali Khan says all opposition parties will reject the report of PCNS.
The Parliamentary Committee on National Security (PCNS) presented its recommendations before the joint session of parliament that started on Tuesday. However, Ch Nisar said that the government cannot be given freedom to write foreign policy as per its whims, particularly when doing so is to hoodwink the masses. He said there was no point of presenting the PCNS report before the parliament without getting suggestions from the opposition parties. He said the PM had promised that opposition parties would be consulted before putting the recommendations in the parliament, but this turned out to be a false promise.
Nisar said asking the US to “do this, and don’t do that” is meaningless when it already has showed least regard for earlier resolutions on drone strikes or other related issues.
He said that the report presented to the parliament was first shown to the US ambassador, therefore it cannot get approval from the opposition parties.
The opposition leader in the National Assembly also said that certain aspects of the report have been kept secret. Ishaq Dar was not allowed to share the details with the party for consultation, he added.
He said the whole process becomes meaningless if the government otherwise fails to convince the US on diplomatic front that they need to respect Pakistan’s sovereignty. He said that if the government wants a legislation on the issue of Nato supply and other security-related issues such as drone strikes, it could do so, but the opposition would resist such move because the government can later use the same legislation to present it as a pretext to allow interference in the country’s affairs.
Nisar said Pakistan is the only country where foreign sleuths entered and operated. Nowhere but the occupied territories such as Afghanistan and Iraq had this practice, he added.
The opposition leader said that such legislation could also be misused by the government to allow repeat of Raymond Davis-like episodes.rt being 'leaked to US envoy': Nisar
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