Staff Reporter Islamabad
US President’ Joe Biden’s administration will ‘reset’ America’s foreign policy make protection of human rights its essential component. This was said by participants of a webinar by the Centre for Afghanistan, Middle East & Africa (CAMEA) at the Institute of Strategic Studies Islamabad (ISSI) on Thursday.
The panel of experts included Dr. Marvin Weinbaum, Director, Afghanistan and Pakistan Studies, Middle East Institute; Dr. Hassan Abbas, Distinguished Professor, NESA, National Defense University, USA & author of ‘The Prophet’s Heir: The Life of Ali ibn Abi Talib’; Dr. Nazir Hussain, Former Dean Faculty of Social Sciences, QAU and Ms. Fatima Raza, Research Associate, CAMEA, ISSI.
Director CAMEA, Amina Khan opened the panel discussion by stating that former US President Donald Trump’s tenure in office has been quite tumultuous and unpredictable to say the least. The past four years have not just been turbulent for US domestic politics but have also created new challenges for American foreign policy in regions across the globe, including the Middle East which occupies a special place in the US foreign policy calculus and was the main focus of today’s discussion.
While the new administration has announced a ‘reset’ in America’s foreign policy, indicating its desire to re-assess and repair alliances, re-join abandoned multilateral agreements, as well as focus on the protection of human rights as an essential component of its foreign policy in the Middle East, it will be interesting to see how this ‘reset’ will impact countries within the Middle East.
In his remarks Ambassador Aizaz Ahmad Chaudhry, Director General, ISSI stated that the topic of Thursday discussion was of great importance. Highlighting Iran as an important country in the region, he remarked that economic activities between Pakistan and Iran have been severely impacted due to harsh economic sanctions imposed against Iran.
Pakistan aspires that JCPOA may somehow be revived as the lifting of sanctions from Iran will benefit Pakistan in many ways. In case of Syria, he maintained that Pakistan has followed a principled approach and will continue to follow it. With Turkey, Pakistan will continue to maintain a close bond.
Talking about key takeaways from President Joe Biden’s fourth of February foreign policy speech, Dr. Weinbaum said that in substance and congruity, the policy would be the same but there would a clear difference in the style in which it is conducted.
