Ex-foreign secretary, Salman Bashir on Thursday said that Pakistan don’t have much options and choices for strategic partnership except China, and then it was also looking towards Russia too.
He was speaking at the roundtable forum, “Troubled Neighborhood: Pakistan’s Options” organized by the Center for Research and Security Studies (CRSS) at its Islamabad Office.
Mr. Bashir stressed that the Pakistan should highlight Kashmir human rights violations like using of pallet guns by Indian forces there as this was also against the Geneva Convention.
“Pakistan has been unable to unlock geo-economics because it has acted as a security state but that is true for India as well. They keep spending enormous amounts on defense” he said.
“We as Pakistanis have done a lot, suffered a lot. Pakistan has tried to match external expectations but it’s time to get out of the school boy mindset and be on our own” he added.
Dr. Moeed Yousaf, Associate Vice President, Asia Center, U.S. Institute of Peace earlier said that strategic location has only brought conflict to Pakistan.
“Pakistan has done only a few things to broaden its alliances. It has done a fantastic job in balancing Iran with Saudi Arabia”, he said while adding that it did feel wronged and worried in the world tilting in favor of India.
He said that the information revolution has made the soft power much more important than ever. “Despite, being a front-line ally of US, Pakistan’s image remains smeared by negatives.”
He said that the status quo was keeping Pakistan weaker, while its differences with India were growing wider. “Evidence of weakness, comes from not unlocking the geo-economics, again because of geo-political fears. Pakistan’s neighbours also don’t make it easy either.”
He said that it was becoming harder for Pakistan to remain relevant. “CPEC is a cold-war model of inter-state relations. Anything Pakistan does, is seen as being on the wrong side of the global narrative every time. Status quo is not working and the evidence is the clearest indicator”, he added.
He said that Pakistan will lose out much more in real terms if it denies India the route, which will ultimately make Indo-Pak-Afghan trade expensive.
“No decrease in Pakistan’s security in 25 years; Pakistan is stronger. But the world has switched to geo-economics as a means of strength.”
“Economic diversification allowed India to transition from security to geo-economics”, he said while adding that commercial interests do upstage security interests.
”We seem to worry the world more than any other country but we don’t enjoy respect. We waste time on responding to US/ British criticism instead of fixing what prompted that criticism” he added.
The discussion was moderated by the Executive Director of CRSS, MR. Imtiaz Gul.