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POLICY prime minister Hassan Diab and his entire erstwhile subservience to Riyadh, which
cabinet on 10 August amid the fallout from has long prohibited Pakistan from any
Iraq to send second round the explosion. disagreement with the Saudis even in private
As per the Lebanese constitution, Diab and
meetings – and here the foreign minister was
of gasoil supplies to his cabinet will stay on in a caretaker capacity issuing warnings on national television.
until a new prime minister is selected to form
Riyadh retaliated immediately, insisting
Lebanon a government. Pakistan repay $1 billion for oil supplies
that had previously been repaid in deferred
ARGUS MEDIA
Iraq is sending a second round of gasoil payments. Who stepped in cover the debt
supplies in aid to Lebanon following the Saudi snub from Pakistan a with a last-minute loan? China. Six days
massive blast that wiped out much of after Qureshi’s TV offensive, Riyadh ended
the Lebanese capital Beirut’s port and bonanza for China, Turkey the loan and oil supply to Islamabad, despite
surrounding areas earlier this month. Pakistan’s repeated requests for the renewal of
Iraqi oil minister Ihsan Ismael said that his Pakistan’s foreign policy has a rule: Say yes to the facility.
country will today send 30 trucks carrying whatever comes out of a Saudi mouth. But last Such was the magnitude of what Qureshi
“more than 1mn litres” of gasoil to Lebanon week, Pakistan slapped back. Why? And who had said that anything barring his sacking
“as part of the assistance provided by the will it really benefit? would mean that the state – which in Pakistan
government and the Iraqi people to the Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Shah translates into the all-powerful military, with
brotherly Lebanese people.” Mehmood Qureshi recently launched a complete control over its foreign policy – is
A first round of supplies was delivered to shocking broadside at Saudi Arabia, the Gulf fully behind the foreign minister’s claim,
Lebanon by 22 trucks, each carrying 36,000 state with whom Islamabad has become even if it is not clear if Pakistan has thought
litres of gasoil, through Syrian territory into increasingly close, let alone dependent on. through all the repercussions.
Lebanon. The supplies were delivered to an oil It was a sign of a new configuration in A week on, while the opposition parties
storage facility in Zahrani on 8 August, just Pakistan’s foreign and economic policies have opportunistically looked to cash-in
four days after the explosion, and were to be which will have far wider repercussions: the on the apparent diplomatic curveball, the
used by Lebanon’s main power provider, EDL, pivot away from Riyadh, towards China and government’s own reaction has been to
for power generation. Turkey, is a recognition of a new global cold talk up relations with Saudi Arabia. But it
Many of Lebanon’s power plants have war, whose most explosive fault lines will has pointedly refused to backtrack on the
been running on heavy fuel oil and gasoil include the border between Pakistan and foreign minister’s statement, maintaining that
for more than twenty years, despite having India. Pakistan would always “protect its interests.”
been originally configured to run on gas. But Marking the anniversary of India revoking Even Qureshi’s own follow-up statements
chronic fuel shortages since the end of the Kashmir’s special status last week, Qureshi have dismissed the now evident turbulence in
Lebanese civil war in 1990 have resulted in issued a stark and unprecedented warning to Saudi-Pakistan relations, and he has declined
daily power cuts for much of the last three Saudi Arabia and the Organization of Islamic to offer even a hint of retraction of his original
decades. Cooperation (OIC). He demanded Riyadh comments.
Lebanon has fuel oil supply contracts with categorically support Pakistan’s position Why would Pakistan risk what has up
both Algeria’s state-owned Sonatrach and on the long-disputed territory of Kashmir, to now been considered the convenience
Kuwait’s state-owned KPC until the end of the threatening that inaction would force and mutual interests of a Saudi sugar daddy,
year. Islamabad to ally with other Muslim states only 18 months after Saudi Crown Prince
Lebanon’s then energy minister Raymond over an issue that Pakistan has long framed as Mohammed bin Salmon was treated to a
Ghajar said last month that Lebanon had a “genocide of Muslims.” hero’s welcome in Islamabad, an alliance for
opened talks with other parties, including Conceding that he was saying something which Pakistan ditched its longstanding ties
Iraq, to secure new arrangements from the “much bigger than my stature,” the foreign with Tehran?
start of next year. But these are likely to have minister’s words for Saudi and the OIC were The reason is that Pakistan has forayed
been shelved following the resignation of the a remarkable departure from Islamabad’s far too deep into its narrative on Kashmir
– equating the current Indian regime with
Nazi Germany perpetuating a Holocaust of a
people that Islamabad claims as Pakistanis –
to sit still diplomatically.
Pakistan now realizes that military-
sponsored pro-Kashmir song competition
and an annual minute of silence won’t do,
especially when the Imran Khan government
is being accused at home of “selling out
Kashmir.”
Even so, regardless of diplomatic or
domestic needs, a policy permanently etched
in Pakistan’s foreign policy rulebook is to say
yes to whatever that comes out of a Saudi
mouth.
Over the last two years alone, the
incumbent Pakistani government has been

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