PPP slams Musharraf's Israel overture; sees U.S. warm-up plot

Former premier Benazir Bhutto's party yesterday slammed President Pervez Musharraf's statement that he was going to open up to Israel which the party said was an attempt to win U.S. support for his continuing dictatorship.

Even though informal military contacts remained with Israel since the days of General Mohammed Zia-ul Haq, Pakistan's foreign policy was to withhold the recognition of Jewish state until the issue of the final status of Occupied Jerusalem was resolved and a settlement on the Golan Heights was reached, it said.

Musharaf had held out the carrot of "opening up'" to Israel without even Israel withdrawing from the sale of sophisticated weaponry to India and without the U.S. offering any tangible support to Pakistan, the PPP spokesman said in a statement. "Musharaf's rule damaged the national interests of Pakistan, as he was bartering away only to gain support for his personal rule."

The spokesman noted that CENTCOM had calculated loss to Pakistan was $10 billion. "However, Musharaf was only able to get one billion dollars write off compared to ten billion for Egypt and Jordan when Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1990."

"The new package of the measly three billion offered was inclusive of the one billion already written off. The remaining two billion dollars still have to go through the Congress where more pressure will be put on Pakistan to make unilateral concessions," the spokes-man said.

"Offering unilateral concessions has become an order of the day under Musharaf who instead of safeguarding national interests is keen to protect his own personal interests."

"Unless the sovereignty of Parliament was restored, the country would continue to suffer the so called sustainable democracy of Musharraf, which means power and plots for ruling generals (and) unemployment and poverty for the people."