ISLAMABAD, April 5: The opposition parties on Saturday requisitioned another Senate session to discuss national security and economic concerns.

A requisition signed by 33 senators belonging to all opposition parties was handed to the Senate secretary on Saturday, sources said.

There was no indication about when the session would be called.

The Constitution requires Senate Chairman Mohammedmian Soomro to call the session to meet within 14 days of receiving the requisition from at least one-fourth of the membership of the house.

Sources said the requisition sought a debate on the country’s “security concerns and economic situation in the context of the current global conditions.”

The last Senate session, which was requisitioned by the opposition parties to discuss the Iraqi situation, ended on Wednesday when the treasury and opposition benches, after a fiery five-day debate, passed a compromise resolution voicing their “shock and dismay” at the US-British invasion.

The opposition’s original draft had condemned the invasion and called for a halt to the fighting and withdrawal of the allied forces from Iraq, but the final text was milder for the sake of consensus with the treasury benches.

The new requisition does not mention Iraq, but parliamentary sources said any debate on security concerns would be dominated by the Iraqi situation.

The opposition parties are not likely to bring a new resolution in the session, which they seem to have called to keep the pot boiling by pointing to perceived dangers the country could face as a fallout of the expected fall of Baghdad and tensions with India over Kashmir.

“Iraq will come up when we talk about security,” Senator Farhatullah Babar of the People’s Party Parliamentarians said. “The next session will be more forceful and we will take up more substantive issues,” he told Dawn.

Opposition sources said senators were likely to talk also about other issues, such as the latest United States sanctions against the nuclear plant at Kahuta and fears voiced in the last session by several senators that Pakistan could be a target because of its nuclear weapons.

While discussing the economic situation, the opposition parties could attack the government over the lack of investment that they trace to the absence of full democracy.

President Gen Pervez Musharraf’s controversial Legal Framework Order, which empowers him to remain president as well as army chief for five more years, dissolve parliament and sack prime ministers, will also come into focus during the debate, opposition sources said.

#PRIVILEGE MOTIONS: Privilege motions from 29 opposition senators over the LFO were filed with the Senate secretariat on Saturday, sources said.

The motions complained of a breach of their privilege by a recent reported statement of the Senate chairman that the LFO, decreed by the president last November, had already become part of the Constitution.

This may be the largest number of privilege motions filed in any house of parliament at a time on the same issue.