ISLAMABAD: The Foreign Office has said that Pakistan will continue to adhere to its policy of respecting war-ravaged Syria’s territorial integrity and sovereignty.
“Pakistan has a principled position on the situation in Syria based on respect for territorial integrity and sovereignty of Syria,” FO spokesman Nafees Zakaria said at a briefing on Thursday.
The reiteration of Pakistan’s policy on Syria came as Saudi Arabia and Turkey considered plans for a ground incursion into Syria on the pretext of fighting the militant Islamic State group.
Both Saudi Arabia and Turkey have been supporting Syrian rebels and have pushed for regime change in the country. They made their plans for ground intervention public after the rebels started losing ground to government forces around Aleppo.
Pakistan is participating in Ra’ad Al-Shamal — the 20-nation military exercises being held in Saudi Arabia. The FO said that participation in the exercises was under a bilateral defence cooperation agreement with Riyadh.
Mr Zakaria said Pakistan had all along called for a political settlement of the dispute in Syria through dialogue. “We believe the Syrian government and opposition groups should exercise restraint and settle their differences peacefully,” he said.
He added: “Pakistan supports all efforts aimed at facilitating a Syrian-led peaceful and inclusive solution that meets the aspirations of the Syrian people through a comprehensive political dialogue.”
SAUDI ALLIANCE: Mr Zakaria said that details of the Saudi-led 34-nation alliance for fighting terrorism would be worked out at the experts’ level. “It is important to understand that we are talking about a mechanism and a formal arrangement between sovereign states,” he said.
Soon after the alliance was announced by Riyadh, Pakistan had confirmed its participation but is still unaware about the operational details.
INDIA: The spokesman hoped that India would soon agree to new dates for the foreign secretaries’ meeting that would decide the timetable and modalities of the Comprehensive Bilateral Dialogue.
“We have noted the policy statement of the Indian high commissioner of not linking the foreign secretary-level talks to the Pathankot incident. In view of the statement, it is our view that a date for the talks should now be decided as early as possible,” he said.
The Indian high commissioner was quoted by the media as having said that India was not linking the secretaries’ meeting to progress in the Pathankot investigations.
http://www.dawn.com/news/1240529/pakistan-respects-syrias-territorial-integrity-says-fo
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