Pakistan will never act as US proxy in any war: FM

While giving a policy statement in the National Assembly, Foreign Minister Khawaja Asif said on Friday that Pakistan would not serve as a proxy for the United States in any war.

Another minister told the house that the government planned to repatriate Afghan refugees in two years.

The foreign minister said people of Afghanistan and other Muslim countries often wanted Pakistan to take part in the wars fought within their borders. "However Pakistan will not act as a proxy in any US-led war," he said.

Afghan refugees to be repatriated in two years

Mr Asif was responding to a calling-attention notice of Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam-F chief Maulana Fazlur Rehman who wanted to know why Pakistan had not voted against the war in Syria during a debate in the UN Human Rights Committee.

Mr Rehman said that of the eight Muslim countries in the committee three Muslim states did not cast their votes, including Pakistan.

The minister said that lack of harmony and unity among the Muslim countries was the main reason behind the various problems they were facing. "No enemy can harm Muslims if they do not become facilitators of the enemy." He said everyone knew who had taken the militant Islamic State group from Iraq to Afghanistan. The next target of the militant group could very well be Pakistan.

"Pakistan has always remained a target of others because people of all warring Muslim states look towards Pakistan and its armed forces for help," he said.

In the past Pakistani rulers compromised the country's sovereignty only to protect their own rule and interests, and fought a "fake jihad" for the defence of the US, said Mr Asif. "That was one of the biggest mistakes that we have committed.

"Pakistan fought a made-in-America jihad against Russia in Afghanistan. We committed the same mistake after 9/11," he said.

The minister claimed that despite pressures and temptations the present government did not become part of any war being fought in a Muslim country, adding that Pakistani troops were sent to Saudi Arabia only for training purposes and not to take part in Yemeni war.

He discussed various crises in the Middle East and without naming the US appeared to hold the superpower responsible for unrest in the region.

Terming the Syrian conflict a "fight for power", Mr Asif said that although he did not support dictatorship "at least human lives were safe under dictators". He claimed that Iraq, Libya and other Middle Eastern countries had been destabilised under a conspiracy against the ummah.

"Despite presence of the US with all its military might in Afghanistan, the production of heroin has increased there from 200 tonnes to 9,000 tonnes and Taliban are operating in 43 per cent of the country; yet they [the US] blame us for facilitating the Haqqani network," he remarked.

Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) leader Dr Shireen Mazari said it had become difficult for the country to support any of the sides fighting in Syria. "Which side will you support in the Syrian war -- Syrian government, the US, Russia, Iran, Saudi Arabia or Turkey?" she asked.

She also urged the Muslim countries to forge unity in order to defeat the agenda of the West and protect their people.