Islamabad, Sept 25: Opposition parties today lashed out at President Pervez Musharraf for telling the UN that Pakistan was ready to help Iraq under a collective UN-sanctioned Arab and Islamic effort. Powerful anti-US Islamic parties, which see any troop contribution to Iraq as carrying out the dirty work for occupying United States forces, rejected any presence in Iraq 'under US tutelage'. "Iraq is a very clear case of British and US occupation. Unless occupation is vacated, Iraqi people will remain enslaved", Senator Khurshid Ahmed of Pakistan's largest Islamic party Jamaat-I-Islami (JI) told agencies. The US wants other countries to share "the aftermath of occupation and protect them. We are against it." Ahmed said Islamic parties also rejected any involvement by the 56-nation Organisation of Islamic Conference (OIC) or the Arab League in a UN-approved force for Iraq, conditions set by Musharraf for any Pakistani involvement.
Musharraf in his address to the United Nations General Assembly yesterday said that Pakistan "would be prepared to help in a collective UN-sanctioned Arab and Islamic effort to help the Iraqi people, if they wish us to do so."
Spokesman for Former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto's Pakistan People's Party (PPP), Senator Farhatullah Babar, said Pakistani troops in Iraq would be used "only to protect American lives and to serve as mercenaries."
"Our stand is clear that Pakistan should send its troops to Iraq only under UN command and control known as the blue berets," Babar said.
Bureau report