LAHORE: A league of renowned US and Pakistan scholars met in Washington on Saturday and unanimously set a fresh tone on critical issues of the Afghan crisis, Pakistan-US multilayered relations, Sino-Pak partnership, Pak-India tension and the latest democratic regression in Pakistan.

The US intelligentsia highlighted growing inadequacies in the latest democratic structure in Pakistan.

Comparing previous governance norms to new setup’s standards, the scholars applauded democratisation process from 2008 to 2013 when one elected civilian government passed on powers to another elected democratic government.

During this period, they said, democratic trends and practices remained satisfactory. However, new phase of democracy failed to carry forward past legacy in befitting manners, they pointed out. They questioned repressive action against the opposition parties in the parliament and out of parliament and apprehended shrinking space for freedom of expression and human rights in current democratic system in Pakistan.

Questions repression of opposition parties

They expressed their views in a seminar arranged by SOCH Chairman Muhammad Mehdi at a local hotel. Among others, the discussants were Afghan and Pakistan Studies at Middle East Institute Director Dr Marvin G. Weinbaum, senior fellow of South Asia Programme Carnegie Endowment for International Peace James Schwemlein, Institute for Peace USA James Ruper, Dr Mansoor Ejaz, Asad Chaudhry and Mowahid Hussain Shah.

The participants agreed on rapid formation of new phase of Afghanistan issue, believing that the genesis of new phase would be much better than before, according to a message received here.

They were of the view the new phase might be improved one but it would be unfair to pin massive expectations with the emerging development. The speakers admitted that Pak-US relations were not up to mark these days. The relations saw many highs and lows and now Pak-US trade trajectory would remain unchanged, they observed.

Spotlighting Pakistan’s ties with the US and China, they were of the view that Pakistan failed to strike an appropriate balance of relations between the US and China.

The speakers had a consensus that US’s core interest in Pak-India row was nothing more than this that their tension should have never gone out of control. Except this, America did not want to play any role over the smothering issue, they asserted.

Published in Dawn, July 21st, 2019