LAHORE, March 30: Former foreign minister Sardar Assef Ahmad Ali says Saudi King Abdullah’s statement that Iraq is under “illegitimate foreign occupation” reflects a major shift and a tectonic change in the Middle East.

“Coming as it does in the wake of opposition by the US Democratic-led Congress to the war policies of President George W. Bush, its significance must not be underestimated”, he said of the Saudi monarch’s statement to the two-day Arab League summit in Riyadh.

Talking to Dawn on Friday, Mr Ali said: “This is the first time that Saudi Arabia has taken such a strong position, although previously the Arab League did oppose the US invasion of Iraq.

“What is significant is Saudi Arabia is at the heart of the Islamic world and a very important member of the OIC. However, the OIC is yet to condemn the illegal invasion and occupation of Iraq by US forces”.

The former foreign minister, who will be presenting a paper on the country’s foreign policy and the changes needed to be made therein at a meeting of the PPP’s think-tank in Islamabad on Sunday, recalled: “All that the OIC has been doing is parroting American and British pronouncements on Islamic extremism. This is probably the first time since the US invasion of Iraq that a major gathering of Arab nations has unequivocally called the invasion and occupation of Iraq by US forces as illegal”.

He said the fact that it happened in the presence of the Iraqi leadership was very significant.

Sardar Assef Ahmad Ali was the foreign minister as PML-Junejo representative during the second tenure of Ms Bhutto in power (1993-96) when the PPP had formed a coalition with the party led by Mr Hamid Nasir Chattha. JUI-F leader Maulana Fazlur Rehman, now secretary-general of the MMA, was then chairman of the National Assembly’s foreign affairs committee.

Mr Ali joined the PPP a few years later.

He said it was a fairly well known fact that King Abdullah, even when he was crown prince, had favoured an independent foreign policy for the kingdom and had made major arms purchases from European sources, not from traditional arms supplier - the US.

According to him, the US was trying to create a Shia-Sunni schism all over the Middle East, particularly in Iraq and in Lebanon. “This US plan supported, I believe, by Gen Musharraf, has caused immense concern in many capitals of the Middle East countries. Saudi Arabia is particularly sensitive to this issue”.

The Arab League summit held in Riyadh, Mr Ali said, must also be read closely with the recent state visit of the Iranian president to Saudi Arabia.

“The Iranian president, I believe, has given assurances of nuclear safety to the Arab world, and has calmed the Arab fears which are being abetted by US policy”.

He said: “I also believe that the Iranian president has offered nuclear cooperation to Saudi Arabia. It is noteworthy that the Iranian president was given exceptional protocol during his visit to the kingdom. The two leaders probably agreed to resist the US efforts in the region to create a Shia-Sunni rift”.

He said: “In my assessment, no matter how strained the relations between Iran and Arab countries may be, nobody wants another war in the Middle East. The Arab world sees another war in the Middle East, even if it is against Iran, a potential disaster that will engulf almost all Middle East countries”.

He said: “Another aspect of the Riyadh summit is that the Middle East is losing patience with the US policy towards Palestine and its unqualified support for Israeli aggression against the Palestinian people. Now the Americans will have to move forward on the roadmap for the peace between Israel and Palestine”.

In his opinion, the two-state solution has now become regional imperative. “The signal to the US is loud and clear. If the US policymakers don’t heed the voice of the Middle East, it would lose many friends in the region”.

When it was pointed out that the US claims it was present in Iraq at the invitation of the people of the country and with the mandate of the United Nations, the former foreign minister said: “This is fallacious and a self-serving argument which was busted in the World War Two when Hitler’s armies invaded and occupied Norway. The then prime minister of Norway had used a similar rationale to justify Hitler’s invasion. More recently, the slain Afghan president Dr Najibullh had not got international legitimacy because he had been installed in power by the occupation army of the Soviet Union”.

The principle here, Mr Ali said, was that a country under a government created under illegal occupation of an alien army did not have legitimacy or UN sanction.

Asked about the fears expressed at the Arab League summit about a race of nuclear weapons in the region, the ex-foreign minister said: “I don’t see it as a fear, I see it as a reality. And this reality has not come about because of the Iranian nuclear programme, but because of the clandestine nuclear weapons arsenal of Israel. Now the world is rightly demanding IAEA inspections and international sanctions on Israel for its illegal nuclear programme”.

In response to a question, Mr Ali said Pakistan could play an important role in the nuclear debate in the Middle East. Had there been an elected government in power in Pakistan, it would have surely initiated a dialogue between Iran and the US.

“Pakistan is in a position to help Middle East countries in developing peaceful nuclear technology under international safeguards”.

About the future of Pakistan-US relations, he said: “ Pakistan -US relations will remain strong and viable, but for this to happen the US administrations will have to change their attitude towards the democratic aspirations of the people of Pakistan. The US administrations have hitherto made friends with dictators, not the people of Pakistan. Obviously, this will have to change”.

He said the US would have to make up its mind whether it wanted Musharraf or friendship with the people of Pakistan.

In his opinion General Musharraf’s legitimacy had eroded after the judicial crisis. “Unless General Musharraf withdraws the reference against the Chief Justice of Pakistan, his credibility cannot be restored. In event of his not doing so, and during the trial of the CJP, the general would lose his credibility and his writ in Pakistan in the next two to three months. He can either try to save himself through an honourable exit or he will go down in disgrace”.

Mr Ali was optimistic about the democratic future of the country.