Country ‘humiliated’ at Chicago: Qureshi
LAHORE, May 22: Former foreign minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi regrets that the country has been humiliated at the Chicago summit because of what he says the leadership with zero credibility.
At a press conference here on Tuesday, he said the country was not being taken seriously by the comity of nations due to zero credibility of the incompetent rulers as the world leaders gave a cold shoulder to President Asif Zardari at the summit. “It’s humiliation of my country for the elected president of my country was given dressing-down at the summit”.
It was sheer incompetence of the PPP government, he said, as it failed to effectively fight the country’s case viz-a-viz Nato supply issue although it had a strong basis to build its argument on.
Information Secretary Shafqat Mahmood, Saloni Bokhari and Andleeb Abbas were also present.
Mr Qureshi, who is vice chairman of Pakistan Tehrik-i-Insaaf, said President Zardari wanted invitation for the summit at all costs while the government did not do its homework for the conference.
Before leaving for the summit, he suggested, either the parliament should have been asked to review its recommendations on the Nato supplies realising it that Islamabad’s relations with Washington were very critical or the authorities should have refused to join the conference until fulfillment of parliamentary conditions—an end to drone attacks and unconditional apology by the US on Salala attack.
He said the world would not take Pakistan seriously because its prime minister was the one who had been convicted by the Supreme Court while legal community and political parties were vigorously protesting against the government.
Referring to Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani’s interview to a foreign TV channel, he said even the interviewer was shocked to hear Gilani’s ‘irrelevant’ response to a question about the government’s unpopularity among the masses.
With such a leadership, he said, “Pakistan is under internal threat more than on its territorial borders.”
The PTI leader also condemned registration of cases against party leaders and activists under MPO-16 only because they were protesting against lenient police action against the MSF ‘hooligans’, who attacked a membership camp of the Tehrik.
He urged the chief minister and saner souls in the PML-N to withdraw the FIR, discourage the MSF activists who tortured ISF members and direct the police to take action against the ‘hooligans.’
Otherwise, he warned, the young blood in the ISF could also react and it would not be good for either side.