KARACHI
\nFormer Senate chairperson Raza Rabbani emphasised on Monday that the federal government should \u201cimmediately\u201d take parliament into confidence on its \u201cnew US policy\u201d, particularly mentioning media reports about the sale of rare minerals and the supposed plan to offer Pasni port to Washington.
\n\u201cThe federal government has not taken the people or parliament into confidence on the dynamics of the new relationship with the United States,\u201d Rabbani stated in a press release. He added, \u201cIt is the right of the people to know the details and the direction of the foreign policy. In history, the US has never been a reliable friend to depend upon.\u201d
\nOn the sale of precious and rare minerals to American metals company US Strategic Metals (USSM), he said it was \u201cunfortunate\u201d that information about the deal had come through the media. He stressed that \u201creal stakeholders\u201d in this matter were the provinces, which should have been taken into confidence through the Council of Common Interests.
\n\u201cThe federal government fails to realise that Article 172 [of the 1973] Constitution [\u2026] is in operation, [and] the provinces are 50 per cent owners of the mineral resources,\u201d Rabbani pointed out.
\nAccording to Article 172: \u201cAny property which has no rightful owner shall, if located in a province, vest in the government of that province, and in every other case, in the federal government [\u2026] Subject to the existing commitments and obligations, mineral oil and natural gas within the province or the territorial water adjacent thereto shall vest jointly and equally in that province and the federal government.\u201d
\nIn this connection, he also recalled that the provinces had \u201crejected the federal government-sponsored minerals law\u201d. The legislation has particularly faced opposition in Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, and even ignited debate on resource control.
\nRabbani further stated that it was \u201calarming\u201d to learn from the international media that Pasni port may be offered to Washington. \u201cThis will have very serious repercussions on the other regional relationships,\u201d he said. He asserted that the federal government should \u201cimmediately take parliament into confidence on the various aspects of its new US policy\u201d.
\nThe former Senate chairperson\u2019s assertion comes against the backdrop of Pakistan is entering a new phase in its economic and strategic partnership with the US, as the two allies move closer to implementing a deal for the export of rare earth minerals.
\nUSSM, which signed a memorandum of understanding with Pakistan in September to invest rou\u00adghly $500 million to establish mineral processing and development facilities in the country, rece\u00adntly dispatched its first consignment of mineral samples to the US to advance the deal.
\nThe sample shipment, prepared locally in collaboration with the Frontier Works Organisation (FWO), includes antimony, copper concentrate, and rare earth elements such as neodymium and praseodymium.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
KARACHI Former Senate chairperson Raza Rabbani emphasised on Monday that the federal government should \u201cimmediately\u201d take parliament into confidence on its \u201cnew US policy\u201d, particularly mentioning media reports about the sale of rare minerals and the supposed plan to offer Pasni port to Washington. \u201cThe federal government has not taken the people or parliament into …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":87764,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-87751","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-national"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87751","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=87751"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87751\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":87765,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87751\/revisions\/87765"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/87764"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=87751"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=87751"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=87751"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}