ISTANBUL: Senator Mushahid Hussain Sayed, representing Pakistan, has been unanimously elected co-chairman of the International Conference of Asian Political Parties (ICAPP).
Launched in Manila in September 2000, ICAPP represents over 300 political parties from 52 Asian countries. Its objectives are to promote exchanges and cooperation between political parties from different countries in the region.
His name was proposed by Thailand and Iran; and supported by China, Cambodia, Russia, Lebanon, Turkiye and Indonesia, before being put to a vote. Former foreign minister of South Korea, Chung Euiyong, was re-elected chairman of ICAPP.
The conference, held every two years, also issued the “Istanbul Declaration” which expressed solidarity with victims of the “recent devastating floods in Pakistan of epic proportions” and urged “alleviating hardships of people through climate finance and climate justice.”
Senator Sayed thanked the participants for reposing confidence in him and termed his election as a “humbling experience for me personally and a great honour for Pakistan” to be so recognised at an important global forum, which represents the public opinion and political parties of the world’s largest continent, Asia.
He termed the current epoch as a historic transformation for Asia as the “balance of economic and political power is shifting from West to East” marking the “dawn of the Asian century,” which he noted the great visionary poet of the East, Muhammad Iqbal, had predicted 90 years ago, when he said: “See, the Sun rising in the East!”
He said: “ICAPP is a continuation of the Bandung Spirit, which started in 1955 with the first Afro-Asian Summit hosted by the great Indonesian leader, Dr Soekarno, at the Indonesian city of Bandung.”
The senator said the “time has come that Asian hands must shape Asian destiny and the future of Asia”. He recounted his own early exposure to Asia, when he was a student studying at a school in Jakarta while his father served as Pakistan’s first Defence Attaché to Indonesia, and later his travels to China, Vietnam, Korea and Cambodia and other Asian countries.
He also referred to Pakistan’s close connections to Asia, when Muhammad Ali Jinnah supported the cause of Indonesian Independence in 1945, and the Palestine issue in 1940 and admired the leadership of Turkey’s Mustafa Kamal Ataturk.
He said the formation of the Indian National Army (INA) in Singapore in 1942 served as a catalyst for the freedom struggle in the South Asian subcontinent. Pakistanis also joined in solidarity with the Vietnamese people, while refusing to join the Korean War, although Islamabad participated in the 1955 Bandung Conference.
Senator Sayed also quoted different world leaders to underline that the “current global scenario is unpredictable, volatile and unstable”, noting that President Joe Biden calls it “the decisive decade”, President Putin of Russia says “this is the most dangerous decade after World War II”, and Chinese President Xi Jinping talks of “once in a century transformative change in the world.”
In this context, he urged Asians to avoid Bloc politics and reject any New Cold War. He also praised Turkish President Erdogan’s role as a “bold voice for Asian rights”.
