Politics & Power Quote by Shaukat Aziz

Diplomacy sometimes moves by not moving at all, and Shaukat Aziz’s line is built to hold the door shut while still pointing at the handle. “Pakistan has not recognized Israel” is the hard edge: a reaffirmation of an entrenched position meant to calm domestic audiences, reassure allies, and avoid gifting opponents an easy charge of betrayal. The ellipsis does quiet work here, signaling that what follows is the more delicate part.

Then comes the safety harness: “any such decision would be taken in supreme national interests.” That phrase is deliberately elastic. It doesn’t name Palestine, Islam, the Arab world, or Kashmir; it replaces moral or ideological commitments with the language of the state. “Supreme” elevates the criterion above faction and emotion, while “national interests” can be later filled with whatever justification is needed - trade, security cooperation, U.S. pressure, regional realignments, or strategic signaling.

The second hedge, “after due consultation of the parliament,” performs democratic legitimacy as a shield. Aziz wasn’t simply invoking process; he was distributing responsibility. If recognition ever happens, it’s not a leader’s whim but an institutional verdict. If it doesn’t, the government can claim it respected procedure. Either way, the sentence anticipates backlash and pre-buries it under parliamentary formality.

Read in context, this is classic high-wire politics for a Muslim-majority state whose public opinion is intensely pro-Palestinian, whose military and intelligence calculus is tied to global partnerships, and whose leaders periodically flirt with pragmatic openings. It’s less a statement of policy than a statement of risk management.