ISLAMABAD: Spokesperson Pakistan Peoples Party Senator Farhatullah Babar has said that there was nothing new nor wrong in the 2010 letter of PM House to the Foreign Office reported in the media on Friday. However its regurgitation at this time is politically motivated and aimed at diverting attention from the real issue, he said in a statement Friday.
Embassies in important capitals of the world also have representatives of relevant government departments including security agencies. The Ambassador was empowered by the Prime Minister to issue visas. But it does not mean that due process within the embassy, involving representatives of other relevant departments, was allowed to be circumvented, he said. He said that the Ambassador was empowered to issue visas only to those whose purpose of visit was clearly defined and duly recommended by the State Department. “The purpose was to expedite, not bypass, the process”.
It was also not an authorization for visas to US Special Operation Forces. Babar said that the central question needing answer is how OBL lived in a cantonment for almost a decade directing global terrorism. The central question is NOT who, following due process, gave visas to some Americans who may have eventually been able to hunt and take OBL out. No amount of verbal jugglery, media circus and mudslinging on the previous PPP government will erase this question from public mind.
A thorough inquiry into visa issuance policies and procedures across the board from 2001 onwards when global hunt for OBL started is what is needed.
“Targeting some individuals or a political government for political purposes will not advance national security interests”, he said.
National security interests will be advanced only by a credible non-partisan probe in the visa policies and procedures across the board and across the time.
Investigations must also be made into how many Americans entered Pakistan through Shamsi airbase in Balochistan, with or without visas, during the days of General Pervez Musharraf, he said.
Such investigations cannot be made through selective leaks or public statements in the media.A starting point can be the Abbottabad Commission probing the OBL fiasco. Making the Abbottabad Commission report public will be in conformity with the narrative. Any other course will not be credible and will be seen as political witch hunting, Farhatullah Babar concluded. INP
