Ambassador Ali Sarwar Naqvi participated as a speaker in an event that was held in Islamabad on 11th September 2018 to pay tributes to the troops that sacrificed their lives in the UN-led peace-keeping and humanitarian relief missions in conflict-ridden states of the world.
“Peacekeeping has changed to peace enforcement”, read the Dawn Newspaper headline on 12th September, quoting the Ambassador. Ambassador Naqvi offered his personal anecdote in this context from the times of 1990s when the US Secretary of State had approached him to contribute to the UN peacekeeping efforts during the civil war in Somalia. He described how peacekeeping efforts of Pakistan had defused tensions between the United States and Pakistan in the 1990s when the latter “was put on the watch list for providing shelter to a terrorist organization”.
In response to the request of the US Secretary of State, Pakistani government sent 500 troops in the conflict and subsequently Pakistan’s name from the terror-sponsor watch list was removed and ties between Pakistan and the United States improved.
However, he denigrated the US’ approach to peacekeeping as one of “selective peace policy”.
