PM's US visit

Prime Minister Syed Yousuf Raza Gilani undertook a three-day official visit to the US from July 28-30. The visit was significant in many ways: It was Gilani's maiden visit to the US after he got elected as the prime minister on March 24 following the February general elections. Second, there has been a mass demand in Pakistan that the War On Terror has driven the country and its society into a corner and that the democratic element in the shape of the supremacy of parliament should be inculcated in war against terrorism. Third, US role in Pakistan's troubled economy should be enhanced particularly in controlling inflation, price hike, and energy shortage.

United States has exerted renewed pressure on the newly elected government to fight back terrorism along the Pak-Afghan border. New frontiers of clashes were opened in Swat and the restive Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) along with regular space violation of the US-led NATO forces of Pakistan's soil by clearly challenging the country's sovereignty. Critics and many in the government and the army termed US actions as complete violation of Pakistan's sovereignty. Now they began to argue that even the former Soviet Union, with whom Pakistan was at war during 1979-88 and even later in Afghanistan, never attacked Pakistan.

Strangely, during Gilani's meeting with the US President Bush, the issue of cross-border violations was not resolved. It was shocking when these leaders met with each other, almost at the same time a US missile attack killed six people including Al-Qaeda's Egyptian chemical weapon expert, Midhat Mursi Al-Sayid Umar (also known as Abu Khabab al-Masri), at Azam Warsak, a small village in South Waziristan on July 29.