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ISLAMABAD:
Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif will attend the first meeting of US President Donald Trump’s Peace Council in Washington today (Thursday).
Besides eight Muslim countries, several other nations will participate in the meeting chaired by Trump. Prime Minister Shehbaz will attend the session with a delegation that also includes Deputy Prime Minister Ishaq Dar, who is also the country’s foreign minister.
Discussions at the meeting will focus on rebuilding Gaza, strengthening the ceasefire and honoring financial commitments.
Before Pakistan commits to sending troops to Gaza as part of the International Stabilization Force (ISF), it wants assurances from the United States that the mission will be aimed at maintaining peace rather than disarming Hamas, three sources told Reuters.
Trump is expected to announce a multibillion-dollar reconstruction plan for Gaza and detail plans for a U.N.-authorized stabilization force for the Palestinian enclave.
Three government sources said during the visit to Washington that Sharif wanted to better understand the ISF’s objective, under what authority they operated and what the chain of command was before making a decision on deploying troops.
“We are ready to send troops. Let me clarify that our troops can only be part of a peace mission in Gaza,” said one of the sources, a close aide of Prime Minister Shehbaz.
“We will not participate in any other role, such as disarming Hamas. That is out of the question,” he said. Pakistan’s foreign ministry did not respond to a Reuters request for comment.
Trump’s 20-point plan for Gaza calls for a force of Muslim nations to oversee a transition period for reconstruction and economic recovery in the devastated Palestinian territory, and Washington has pressed Islamabad to join.
Analysts say Pakistan would be an asset to the multinational force, with its experienced army that has gone to war against its main rival, India, and fought insurgencies.
“We can initially send a few thousand troops at any time, but we need to know what role they will play,” the source added.
Two of the sources said it was likely that the prime minister, who met with Trump earlier this year in Davos and late last year at the White House, would have an audience with him on the sidelines of the meeting or the next day at the White House.
Initially designed to cement the ceasefire in Gaza, Trump sees the Peace Council, launched in late January, playing a broader role in resolving global conflicts. Some countries reacted cautiously, fearing becoming a rival to the United Nations.
Although Pakistan supported the creation of this council, it expressed concerns about Hamas’s demilitarization mission.
Analysts say Islamabad will have to balance pleasing Trump by providing troops and the possible domestic fallout in a majority-Muslim nation.
Husain Haqqani, Pakistan’s former ambassador to the United States, said Pakistani public opinion favored sending troops to Gaza only to help protect Palestinians.
“If developments in Gaza after the deployment do not improve the situation for the Palestinians, there could be a massive backlash at the public level in Pakistan,” said Haqqani, currently a research fellow at the Hudson Institute in Washington.
(COURTESY OF REUTERS)
