Pakistan rejects ‘politically influenced’ US sanctions

Pakistan has strongly rejected political influence sanctions imposed by the U.S. Department of States stating that such listings of commercial entities have taken place in the past as well on allegations of links to Pakistan’s ballistic missile programme “without sharing any evidence whatsoever”.

“While we are not aware of the specifics of the latest measures by the United States, in the past we have come across many instances where listings have been made on mere suspicion or even when the involved items were not on any control lists but were deemed sensitive under catch-all provisions,” Foreign Office spokesperson Mumtaz Zahra Baloch said in a statement.

“We have pointed out many times that such items have legitimate civil commercial uses. It is, therefore, important to avoid arbitrary application of export controls.”

She was off the view that sharing of technology between the parties is under objective mechanism in pursuit of socio-economic development.

“Pakistan has always been ready to discuss end-use and end-user verification mechanisms so that legitimate commercial users are not hurt by discriminatory application of export controls,” Baloch said.

The FO spokesperson expressed Pakistan’s rejection of political use of export controls.

“It is a reality that the same jurisdictions, which claim to exercise strict non-proliferation controls, have waived off licensing requirements for advanced military technologies for some countries,” the statement quotes Baloch as saying.

“This is leading to arms build up; accentuating regional asymmetries, and undermining the objectives of non-proliferation and of regional and global peace and security.”