Saifullah Qasuri welcomes Islamabad’s bid to bring Riyadh, Ankara and Tehran to one table, demands no leniency for Houthis, and tells the government to stop promising and start delivering relief.
LAHORE: The Pakistan Markazi Muslim League (PMML) has thrown its weight behind Islamabad’s effort to draw Saudi Arabia, Turkiye and Iran into a common security conversation, even as the religious party sharpened its attack on the government over electricity, gas and fuel prices at home.
PMML Secretary General Saifullah Qasuri said unity, mutual understanding and a joint strategy among Muslim states were essential to meeting the challenges facing the Ummah, and that Pakistan was well placed to help settle differences between them. He was speaking at an Istehkam-e-Pakistan and Seerat-un-Nabi conference attended by PMML Sindh President Faisal Nadeem, Ahmad Nadeem Awan and other party office-bearers.
The remarks followed the first joint meeting of the four countries’ senior security officials, held in Tehran on Monday. Pakistan’s army chief, Field Marshal Asim Munir, Saudi Defence Minister Prince Khalid bin Salman and Turkish intelligence chief Ibrahim Kalin met Mohsen Rezaei, secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, and the four agreed to keep talking on regional peace and security, Al Jazeera reported.
A pact, and a channel to Tehran
Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Turkiye are bound by the Makkah Joint Defence Agreement signed in August, under which an attack on one is treated as an attack on all. Islamabad has used that position to keep a line open to Tehran rather than close one, a balance The Lahore Times has examined as the region’s war has widened since February.
A Pakistani official told Al Jazeera that CDF Asim Munir put a proposal to Iran in Tehran that offered something to both Washington and Tehran, with the pact states and Qatar as possible guarantors. Its details were not made public.
On Wednesday, Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar called the alliance “a critical force for lasting regional peace” in a meeting with its first secretary-general, retired Lieutenant General Nauman Mahmood, while stressing that it was defensive and aimed at no country.
Hard line on the Houthis
Saifullah Qasuri’s call for unity stopped short of the Houthis. Those responsible for attacks on the holy sites of Makkah and Madinah should be shown no leniency, he said, adding that protecting the sacred places and keeping peace across the Muslim world was a shared duty of all Muslim governments.
Saudi-led coalition forces said in mid-September they had destroyed a Houthi drone south of Makkah before it entered the city’s restricted airspace, the first such incident since 2017. About two weeks later, a drone knocked out a transformer at the Taiba grid station that feeds the Prophet’s Mosque in Madinah, according to coalition spokesman Major General Turki Al Malki. No casualties were reported.
The PMML has made the issue a mobilising cause, staging countrywide protests after the Makkah incident. Its position on Iran, by contrast, is conciliatory: Qasuri framed Tehran as a partner to be brought in rather than a rival, a distinction that mirrors the official line separating the Houthis from the Iranian state.
Bills at home
Turning to the economy, Qasuri said inflation, high electricity and gas bills, rising petroleum prices and the cost of daily essentials were weighing heavily on the public. Salaried staff, labourers, traders and low- and middle-income families were under severe financial strain, he said, and energy costs were dragging on business activity.
Official data back the broad picture. Consumer price inflation stood at 10.3pc in September, the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics said, with electricity prices up 33pc and petrol 39pc from a year earlier, according to The Express Tribune. Weekly Sensitive Price Indicator inflation climbed to 11.85pc in the week to Oct. 22.
Petrol has eased from a peak of Rs398.96 a litre in early October to Rs377.71 on Oct. 23, but food prices have kept climbing. The party has previously called a Rs1.11 per unit power tariff increase a “suicidal attack on the poor” and criticised gas cuts as LPG sold at nearly double the official rate.
Qasuri urged the government to go beyond promises: control inflation, reduce the burden of utility bills, cushion the impact of fuel prices and create jobs. He did not set out how those measures should be funded while Pakistan works within its programme with the International Monetary Fund.
The party’s pitch
Qasuri said the PMML’s agenda rested on public service, national sovereignty, economic stability and the protection of Islamic values. National unity, institutional responsibility and attention to public grievances were needed to restore confidence and see the country through its present difficulties, he said.
The pairing of foreign-policy support with domestic criticism reflects a familiar position for the party that aligned with the state on security and the Haramain, and in opposition on household costs.
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