ISLAMABAD, Aug 22: Foreign Minister Khurshid Mehmood Kasuri said in Senate that Pakistan could not afford to make the United States its enemy, but said that the country had never compromised on its national interests and would never do so in future.

He said the country had its own ‘red lines’ which had been categorically communicated to the countries concerned.

Winding up a two-day debate on the country’s foreign policy in the wake of US presidential candidates’ statements and Washington’s civil nuclear treaty with Delhi, Mr Kasuri enumerated a number of foreign policy successes of the past five years, brushing aside the criticism of opposition lawmakers.

He warned against demands for change in the foreign policy, claiming that the policy had been framed in accordance with the “national requirements.”

He also asserted that countries which had changed their foreign policies had faced extremely tragic fate.

The minister praised opposition leader Raza Rabbani’s speech on the subject, and termed it the ‘most logical’ endorsement of government’s point of view.

Mr Kasuri conceded the importance of internal consensus on the foreign policy, adding that Gen Musharraf had tried to convene an all-party conference to evolve consensus on national issues, but the opposition rejected the move, demanding his resignation first.

Mr Kasuri said that due to its strategic location, the country could not afford isolation.

The foreign minister categorically stated there were no safe havens of terrorists in Pakistan, though conceding that there were some terrorists hiding here and there. But because of these terrorists, no US action inside Pakistani territory would be accepted, he declared.

He expressed disappointment over the Pakistan-specific provisions of a recently-passed US law, and stressed that any linkage between assistance and counter-terrorism efforts would be contrary to the goal of long-term strategic partnership.

Referring to the US-India nuclear deal, he said Pakistan

had the right to use nuclear

technology for civilian purposes.

Giving examples of how on a number of occasions Pakistan did not toe the American line, the foreign minister said: “Pakistan rejected the US invasion of Iraq; it refused to send troops to Iraq; it did not succumb to pressures on Iran-Pakistan-India gas pipeline project; it did not endorse the Comprehensive Convention against Terrorism; it condemned last year’s Israeli attack on Lebanon; and it fully backed the Palestinians.

Defending the pro-US foreign policy of the government, the foreign minister said that the American assistance should not be taken at its face value because it had also opened up doors on trade, triggering an economic boom in the country with volume of trade with several EU and other countries touching record levels.

On the Kashmir issue, the foreign minister said that India, which used to claim both parts of Kashmir as its integral part, had agreed to negotiate a peaceful settlement for which back-channel diplomacy was under way.

He refuted opposition’s charge of Pakistan’s tense relations with its neighbours and referred to massive increase in trade with Afghanistan, Iran and China.

Leader of opposition Raza Rabbani said in his speech that an upsurge in acts of terrorism was due to US policies and it must change its attitude towards the Muslim world.

He said the so-called pre-emptive US attacks on Muslim countries were in fact meant to control their resources to benefit the Zionist lobby and its multinational companies.

The Western threat perceptions, he said, had changed from the Arab nationalism and communism and now it had raised the bogey of Islamic terrorists, describing yesterday’s Mujahideen as today’s terrorists.

The PPP leader said that Pakistan should ensure that its soil was never used for export of terrorism, withdraw overt or covert support to terrorist organisations, arrest foreign terrorists, support the Afghan government, engage the Taliban in dialogue, open Fata to political process and change its concept of “strategic depth.”

To achieve these objectives, he said, the country needed to return to democracy and end military’s role in politics.

Dr Muhammad Saed of the MMA was criticised when he said that “if we go by the American definition of terrorism then Quaid-i-Azam and Allama Iqbal will also be included in that list.”

Leader of the House Wasim Sajjad condemned the statement, saying that both the national leaders had given the concept of a modern Islamic state where parliament would run the state and it would not be controlled by the clergy.

The house eulogised the services of renowned novelist of the sub-continent Qurratulain Hyder, and offered fateha for younger brother of Javed Hashmi.

Razina Alam of the Treasury asked the government to take notice of demolition of a statue of Quaide-i-Azam in the York University, which had been built with funds donated by Pakistani expatriates.