Saudi
snub for Pakistan
Sir,
The
Foreign Minister of Saudi Arabia
Saud-al-Faisal showed remarkable
political sagacity on Sunday befitting a
leader of this great Kingdom when the
refused to back Pakistani official
propaganda against India accusing it of
persecuting its Muslims. During his Press
conference in Islamabad, a Pakistani
journalist asked him a motivated question
in an attempt to draw him into condemning
India for this alleged persecution.
The
questioner asked him his views on what he
called atrocities on Muslims in general
and Kashmiris in particular in India.
Whoever in the Government asked this
journalist to ask this question must be
feeling very foolish because the reply
came as an announcement of Saudi
disapproval of Islamabad's campaign of
vilification against India. In fact it
sounded like a policy statement of the
Saudi Government.
In his
reply, Prince al-Faisal made three clear
observations. One, he said, "I would
hate to think of the Muslims in India as
a minority coming from a country that had
less Muslims, these Muslims are not
scattered in the wind. They are people
with substance. They are people with
courage and with enough of that courage
to stand up for their interests by
themselves and not to wait for the help
of others." He further said the
Indian Muslims did not need the help of
Saudi Arabia or Pakistan. This
observation of the Foreign Minister of
the most influential Muslim country less
than 48 hours of the 10th summit of the
Organisation of Islamic Conference in
Malaysia, where Gen. Pervez Musharraf and
his Foreign Minister Khurshid Mehmud
Kasuri had succeeded in getting a
Kashmir-related resolution passed, could
be a notice to Islamabad not to take
Muslim countries' support in its problems
with India for granted.
Two, the
Saudi Foreign Minister's observation that
he thought "a wise leadership from
Pervez Musharraf in seeing peaceful
settlement with India is the right way to
go", sounds like his advice to
Islamabad to avoid the route of
cross-border terrorism for a settlement
with India. Gen. Musharraf has more than
once claimed that he could order the stop
of militancy in Kashmir if India agreed
to talk to him. This is his clear
admission of involvement in the acts of
terrorism in Kashmir. The Saudi
Government is alarmed by the recent rash
of terrorist activities in the Kingdom
and is also terribly embarrassed when it
is mentioned among the countries from
where terrorists and coming. Saudi
Arabia, like the whole world, is aware
that Pakistan continues to be the
breeding ground of terrorism despite its
support of the United States led campaign
against global terrorism. The world is
now realising that Pakistan wants to keep
on patronising terrorist in the name of
what it calls freedom movement in
Kashmir.
Three,
there was another very important
indication the Saudi Foreign Minister
gave. He treated Kashmir as an issue
between India and Pakistan. This want
against Pakistan's efforts to project
Kashmir in the OIC summit in Malaysia as
an issue for the Muslim Umma. This is
something, which frustrates Pakistan.
Javed Jabbar, who advises the Musharraf
Government on propaganda, sounded very
upset when he told a PTV panel in March
this year that "it is very said that
brotherly country Malaysia described
Kashmir as a bilateral issue between
India and Pakistan at the time of
Non-Aligned meeting".
The OIC's
resolutions on Kashmir really do not
satisfy Pakistan because; as Mr. Jabbar
complained Muslim countries do not give
any importance to Kashmir in their radio
and TV programmes. There are others in
Pakistan who deplores that those
countries who support Islamabad's plea
for talks with India do not support its
(Islamabad's) stand on Kashmir.
Saudi
Arabian Foreign Minister Al Faisal had
accompanied the Crown Prince Abdullah bin
Abdul Aziz, who arrived in Islamabad on
Saturday for a two-day visit of Pakistan.
That should lend more weightage to what
Prince Faisal had to say. And that should
provide some food for thought to policy
makers in Islamabad.
Yours
etc...
D R Ahuja
N-83, Greater Kailash Part-I,
New Delhi-110048
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