Saudi monarchy humiliated Prime Minister Nawaz at anti-Iran Riyadh Summit

Pakistani newspaper The Nation’s Editor Salim Bokhari rightly noted the humiliating attitude towards Pakistan and Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif at the Riyadh Summit against Iran and its allies. The popular sentiment among the majority of Pakistani media delegation was that of a total humiliation of the sole Muslim nuclear power because not only there was no mention of Islamabad’s role against global terrorism but also the prime minister of the ‘frontline state’ was denied the opportunity to put forth its point of view.

Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, earlier on his special flight, spent nearly two and a half hours consulting his comrades-in-arms preparing and finalising his speech that he thought he would deliver at the summit.
Also, the members of the media delegation were given to understand that after checking against delivery, the speech would be released to accompanying journalists. But now, the prime minister or his staff will carry that speech folder back home.
Later, neither Adviser on Foreign Affairs Sartaj Aziz nor any other responsible person was available to explain why the prime minister was denied the opportunity to speak to the participants of the summit, for which a Saudi minister only last week visited Islamabad and extended the invitation to PM Sharif.
It was also quite strange that though there was almost no possibility of a Sharif-Trump meeting, the Foreign Office, back at home, kept hyping it up. In the end, let alone the meeting, we were even not invited to let the others know how we think about the fight against terrorism.
Pakistan was essentially the most important Muslim country after Saudi Arabia in terms of leadership of the Muslim Ummah and the leading state in terms of fight against global terrorism, but the treatment meted out to us here in Riyadh made us feel like we are pitiful losers.
Something has gone terribly wrong. This is the only way one can describe what happened to Pakistani delegation headed by Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif at the Arab-Islamic-American summit held in the Saudi capital on Sunday.
Representatives of some minion states were allowed to speak that have not even tasted a shred of the kind of carnage faced by Pakistan, which however has turned the tide on terror in an unprecedented episode of courage, commitment and sacrifice that no other participant of the 35-state summit could even think of offering for world peace.
The cold-shoulder attitude of King Salman to Pakistani delegation was particularly hurtful. Some diplomats were of the view that since Pakistan refused to send its troops to fight against Iran-backed rebels in Yemen, it might have annoyed the Saudi monarchy.
Though both Trump and King Salman also called for defeating Wahhabi takfiri terrorist state-cum-organistaion Daesh (ISIS), it was clear that Iran and its allies are going to be the main target of this new battle in the name of terrorism.
Interestingly, it is none other than the US and the KSA [Kingdom of Saudi Arabia] which are thought to be the creators of Al-Qaeda and ISIS.
“The nations of Europe have also endured unspeakable horror. So too have the nations of Africa and even South America. India, Russia, China and Australia have been victims,” US President Donald Trump said in his keynote address, skipping the name of Pakistan – which lost over 70,000 civilians and more than 6,000 of its valiant soldiers to terrorism.
The mention of India among the list of terror victims was more pinching as it comes at a time Islamabad, through spy-terrorist Kalbhushan Jadhav’s case at International Court of Justice, is trying to convince the world of New Delhi’s role in fanning terror.
Terming India a victim of terrorism was also a deeply painful insult to innocent, unarmed Kashmiris who are fighting for their just cause of liberating their land from the oppressive India and facing worst kind of state terrorism at the hands of its armed forces.
Joining Muslim Nato fires back!
An even bigger setback for Pakistan’s foreign policy came when both Trump and Saudi King Salman – the most influential pair – turned the summit into a launching pad against Iran, the leader of the Shia Muslims that shares a 909 km long border with Pakistan, whose around 20 percent population is Shia by faith.
Accusing Saudi Arabia’s regional rival of fuelling “the fires of sectarian conflict and terror”, Trump called for isolating Tehran. “Until the Iranian regime is willing to be a partner for peace, all nations of conscience must work together to isolate it,” Trump said.
Saudi King Salman in his speech called Iran “the spearhead of global terrorism” and called for containing it. “We did not know terrorism and extremism until the [Ayatollah Ruhollah] Khomeini revolution reared its head [in Iran],” he said.
Pakistan has joined the 34-nation KSA-led military alliance ‘against terrorism’ and the government allowed its celebrated ex-army chief Raheel Sharif to head alliance’s rapid deployment forces – despite fierce opposition at home.
The move was opposed by almost all opposition parties over fears that the so-called ‘Muslim NATO’ could eventually turn out to be an alliance of Gulf states against Shia Iran and bring Islamabad into the vortex of transnational sectarian conflict.