By Muhammad Luqman
Pakistan has urged the United States and Iran to exhibit “restraint” and resolve the issues that have ratcheted up tensions between them through negotiations.
Addressing a weekly news conference in the capital, Islamabad on Thursday, Foreign Office Spokesperson Dr Mohammad Faisal termed the recent developments in the Persian Gulf as “disturbing”.
He said Washington’s decision to deploy an aircraft carrier and B-52 bombers to the Gulf has “added to the tension[s] and the existing precarious security situation in the Middle East”.
“Any miscalculated move can transmute into a large scale conflict,” the FO spokesperson said.
The remarks come a day after the US ordered all nonessential government staff to leave Iraq, and Germany and the Netherlands suspended their military assistance programs in the country in the latest sign of tensions sweeping the Persian Gulf region.
Recent days have seen allegations of sabotage targeting oil tankers off the coast of the United Arab Emirates, a drone attack by Yemen’s Iranian-allied Houthi rebels, and the dispatch of US warships and bombers to the region.
According to media reports, at the root of this appears to be President Donald Trump’s decision a year ago to pull the US from Iran’s nuclear deal with world powers, embarking on a maximalist sanctions campaign against Tehran. In response, Iran’s supreme leader issued a veiled threat on Tuesday, saying it wouldn’t be difficult for the Islamic Republic to enrich uranium to weapons-grade levels.
On Tuesday, Pakistan’s foreign minister, Shah Mahmood Qureshi had announced that his country would not join any camp in case of conflict in the Gulf region.
He said that Pakistan was concerned over the rising tensions between Teheran and Washington.
Qureshi warned that any conflict could have negative implications for the entire region, including Pakistan. “Therefore, we need to evolve a clear strategy on this,” the minister said. He, however, made it clear that Pakistan would not join any camp in the ongoing tensions in the Gulf.
