Committee:

Pakistan National Assembly

Signatories:
Imran Khan, Shah Mehmood Qureshi, Asad Umar, Shireen Mazari,

Working Paper 1.0

Revamping Pakistan’s Foreign Policy in International Arena

Importance of Foreign Policy:

 Pakistan is the 2nd largest Muslim country and the first to test nuclear power.
 Its geopolitical location is very important as far as the economy and peace is concerned.
 Due to its geopolitical location, Superpowers wish to revive relations with Pakistan.
 Before the division of subcontinent, British invested in this region only due to its strategic location as
they called it a golden sparrow.
 After all such blessings, past governments are failed to make Pakistan’s footings strong in the
international community.
 Our policies will work in a way in which all these blessings will be utilized and Pakistan will be
established as a well-organized state in all manners.

Pakistan’s Policy in Establishing Peace in the Region:

 The government was blamed to go against its own stance i.e. they will first do table talks with India
in any situation; when the Prime Minister, Imran Khan, raised the issue of Kashmir in UNGA.
However it was made clear that the government did several attempts to do table talks with India but
all in vain. The captive pilot Abhinandan was also released to show an attempt to do table talks with
India.
 According to Lahore Declaration 1999, we could easily have detained him but in order to do table
talks, the government allowed the captive to go back.
 In PPP’s tenure, the US army used Larkana base to do bombardment on Afghanistan without even
the permission of the Army or Government; whole of this portrayed a very bad image of Pakistan in
international forum. PTI’s government has always been against these type of one-sided benefitted
policies.
 Similarly during PMLN’s tenure, we saw the DO MORE policy with USA in which we were
provided with USAID and were forced to do whatever we were ordered to.
 In our government we have created policy which will sign all agreements on equal terms with any of
the countries.
 Government was blamed that it captured Afghanistan; PPP was unable to provide any comment or
proof that in which sense they have claimed this and what they want to convey.

Pakistan’s relations with India:

 Pakistan has always been a very friendly country in terms of India.
 Prime Minister Imran Khan took initiative of Kartarpur Rahdari and completed it within a short span
of 1 year to show a peace gesture towards India and Sikhs in it specifically. This also showed that
Pakistan provides full religious freedom.
 One of the prominent personalities of India and former cricketer, Sidhu, was also invited in Pakistan
which again showed Pakistan as a friendly country.
 Our foreign minister, Shah Mehmood Qureshi, invited India to have bilateral talks but India refused.
 Instead India increased atrocities in Kashmir and destroyed the Babri Masjid.
 We are looking forward to improve trade and commercial ties to benefit both countries and reduce
poverty.
Pakistan’s Relations with Superpowers:
 “A friendship higher than the heights of Himalayas and deeper than the depths of Arabian Sea”, said
Prime Minister Imran Khan in his speech, in accordance to China.
 The government appreciated the steps taken by previous governments in developing the foreign
policy with China due to which positive economic and military aspects had been visible in the
country.
 Pakistan was the first to recognise China an independent state when it gained independence in 1947.
 As China has invested about $46 billion in Pakistan in various projects which came under CPEC.
 China has launched ‘Belt and Road Initiative’ (BRI) which is a mega-infrastructure project around
the world and Pakistan is the major country in BRI.
 JF-17 Thunder fighter jets is the combined effort of Pakistan & China.
 The government has also considered that after all such good relation, our relations with states such as
USA and India have been deteriorated, so we consider that maybe we need to revisit and revamp our
policy with China.
 We are looking forward to a policy with our neighbour china which maintains equality and does not
harm other affairs of Pakistan.
 We are looking forward to a “mutually beneficial” relationship as opposed to the “one-way” present
ties of state with USA.

Pakistan’s Relations with the Islamic World:

 Since 1947 when Pakistan was announced as an Islamic state, some extremist orthodox Muslim
leaders gave plenty of rigid Islamic policies due to which atrocities started which earned blame on
Muslims as a terrorist nation. This resulted in deterioration in our relations with developed states like
USA, Europe etc.
 During Afghan Civil War (1989-1992), Pakistan masterminded an attack on Jalalabad and sided
USA army in every aspect; this shadowed us as against Islam and in whole Islamic world we earned
a negative image.
 Saudi Arabia and Iran initially used Pakistan as a battle ground for their proxy sectarian wars in
1990s but we got nothing in return for our purpose especially in Kashmir issue and in other problems
as well.
 So we as a revamping of our policy has decided to maintain good relations with Saudi Arabia in a
way that in future we will be equally benefited in our time of need.
 Past governments have not been so successful in establishing itself as a prominent member of OIC,
so we will be doing efforts in realising all Muslim states that we are here to help not because of our
greed but as our religious duty to help Islamic States in their difficult time.