Foreign Minister Mr. Khurshid M. Kasuri, released the following statement of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Pakistan deplores the initiation of military action against Iraq. Pakistan had consistently called on Iraq to fulfill its U.N. Security Council disarmament obligations fully and speedily. We regret that President Saddam Hussein did not consider all options to save the Iraqi people from death and destruction. We had stressed that the search for a peaceful solution should remain a priority and that all avenues must be explored and exhausted since the use of force is envisaged in the UN Charter only under extreme situations.
In the Security Council and outside, we had urged that the Permanent Members evolve a consensus, as this was their traditional responsibility, to ensure the unity of the Council, which would have been the best solution for resolving the Iraq crisis. It was unfortunate that a P-5 consensus could not be reached, and that the efforts of the non-Permanent Members, including Pakistan, who tried their best, were not able to bridge this divide.
On this sad day, we reaffirm our conviction that : -
i) Priority must be given to avert a humanitarian disaster for the Iraqi people.
ii) Civilian casualties, infrastructural damage particularly to the civic services and the holy places, must be strictly avoided.
iii) Military action should not prolong.
iv) The territorial integrity and sovereignty of Iraq must be preserved, and its rights over its natural resources.
v) The fundamental rights of the people of Iraq, including over their governance, should be respected.
vi) The Security Council must resume its primary responsibility, under the U.N. Charter for the maintenance of international peace and security, in order to ensure these pressing objectives with which the international community is now faced.
This course of events should not be considered as setting any precedent in the conduct of inter-state relations. Pakistan firmly believes in preserving the centrality of the United Nations, observance of Charter principles by all States, and the implementation of the resolutions of the Security Council without selectivity or discrimination.
The Security Council must uphold international legality equitably. It must implement all Security Council resolutions including those on Jammu and Kashmir, and also Palestine, whose peoples have been struggling and dying for over fifty years.
Pakistan will continue to work within the Security Council and elsewhere towards these international objectives and towards the restoration of peace and security in Iraq and the region.
Pakistan is ready to send humanitarian assistance to Iraq, as our contribution to meet the humanitarian challenge with which the international community is now faced with.
The need of the hour is to help the Iraqi people. Pakistan will not be found wanting.
Islamabad,
March 20, 2003
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