ISLAMABAD, 13 October 2003 — Pakistan and China will hold joint naval exercises on Oct. 21, the official PTV reported yesterday.
Seven hundred Pakistani Navy personnel will participate in the exercises to be conducted off Shanghai coast and aimed at promoting “defense cooperation” between the two countries, PTV said, without giving further details. These exercises follow the largest-ever joint exercise held by the Indian and US navies in the Indian Ocean earlier this month. Pakistan’s dependence on old ally China has increased since arch-rival India started building closer military relations with the US and acquiring advanced weapons systems from Israel and Russia.
Five Former Pakistani Foreign Ministers Appeal to Muslims
Five former foreign ministers of Pakistan yesterday called on the Muslim world to “evolve a realistic practical strategy” to deal with the policy of pre-emptive military action being pursued by the US and a handful of other nations.
“This strategy has to be based on the resolve of the Muslim world to collectively counter such threats and pressures that are growing against different Muslim countries,” they said in an open letter to the leaders of the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC). The group numbering 57 countries is slated to meet in Kuala Lumpur on Oct. 16-17.
In signing the joint appeal Agha Shahi, Sardar Asef Ahmed Ali, Gohar Aub Khan, Sartaj Aziz and Abdul Sattar set aside political differences. As part of their strategy, OIC countries should “focus on internal reform” also and recognize “the imperative of a democratic Islam countering extremism and intolerance”, they said.
They said “the war on terrorism is being widely perceived as a war against Islam.” A major part of the blame went to the Western media which equated “terrorism and extremism with Islam and portrayed the militant Islam as the most important threat to Western civilization”.
After the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, other Islamic countries have been targeted “on one pretext or another”, they said. “Four Muslim countries have been identified for a contingent pre-emptive nuclear first strike even though they are non-nuclear states. Two of these four have been branded as members of the ‘axis of evil’ by the sole superpower (the US).
“And in the last several months, a new coalition for unilateral and illegitimate pre-emption in the name of preventing terrorism, has further exacerbated the insecurity of these countries,” they said without naming the threatened Muslim countries.
They urged the OIC summit “to convey to the world, as forcefully as possible, that global terrorism cannot be eradicated through the use of pre-emptive military force alone. It is no less necessary to deal with the underlying causes of extremism and terror”.
“A common approach worked out in consultation with the Islamic countries and institutions could be more effective in dealing with them (the scourge),” they said.
They proposed that the OIC summit create a standing committee consisting of eight or 10 foreign ministers who could meet at short notice at the request of any OIC member facing “an imminent threat or pressure” and act on behalf of the OIC.
The committee should also be authorized “to hold high-level consultations with countries concerned on regional conflicts like Palestine, Kashmir, Chechnya or deal with any specific threats from terrorist and extremist groups”, the five said.
