Message Board

Is the US acting as a sole superpower by snubbing UN? Post your views

Islamabad: Amid threats by the Islamist alliance to socially boycott Pakistani troops if they were deployed in Iraq, Islamabad has said it would decide on the request of US and Britain to send two brigades of its Army for peacekeeping operations in Baghdad after consultations with Muslim countries.

"We do not want to see our troops being misconstrued as an occupational force instead of a force for stability that has come to serve the people of Iraq," Pakistan Foreign Minister Khurshid Mehmood Kasuri told reporters on June 28.

Elaborating on recent assertions by President Pervez Musharraf that Pakistan is considering the requests to deploy its forces in Iraq, Kasuri said Islamabad preferred a UN cover to send troops and is holding consultation with Muslim countries to decide on the issue.

Musharraf, who is currently visiting US, said President George W Bush made the request to deploy Pakistan troops for operations in Iraq and his government is considering various aspects, including the financial implications involved in deployment of troops.

"Consultations with brotherly Muslim countries have started in line with the request made by the United States and the United Kingdom to send two brigades of Pakistan Army to Iraq. But we would like that the Pakistani troops be deployed along with other Muslim countries," Kasuri said.

Islamist alliance Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA) leaders have said they would not hold any Pakistani soldier killed in Iraq as "martyr" and would ostracise their families besides holding protests.

PTI