Opposition foreign affairs spokesman George Vella insisted before the House Foreign Affairs Committee this evening that the purpose of the Opposition's censure motion against Ambassador Richard Cachia Carauna was to safeguard parliamentary scrutiny.

Dr Vella spoke about the motion after the committee, in the wake of a ruling by the Speaker (see separate story) agreed to hear evidence by Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi and once that and questioning were over, to hear the evidence of Ambassador Cachia Caruana as the second witness.

Dr Vella  insisted, as he did yesterday, that the purpose of the motion was not Malta's membership of Partnership for Peace, but the actions of a public official.

(At this stage Nationalist MP Franco Debono entered the committee room).

Dr Vella said the motivation of this motion was that parliamentary scrutiny should be given its importance. A document leaked by Wikileaks last August showed that Mr Cachia Caruana, for whatever reason, had reportedly had talks with a number of ambassadors during which he discussed options for the resolution of a problem. It resulted that what was being done was aimed at avoiding a parliamentary debate on a divisive issue. The purpose of the talks was to achieve agreement on a different interpretation of something (whatever it was) in order to avoid going before parliament.

In so doing, Mr Cachia Caruana was safeguarding the interests of other countries more than his own, Dr Vella said. The document claimed that he was to seek 'guidance' from Washington about his proposal. This was unacceptable, and it was insulting to the Maltese parliament that he never said a word about what he was doing in this matter.

Whatever the purpose of Mr Cachia Caruana's proposal and however good or otherwise it was for Malta, he should have appeared before parliament not acted behind its back, Dr Vella said.

Foreign Minister Tonio Borg denied that there was ever an attempt to sideline parliament. Membership of Partnership for Peace was excluded at the time.

He said it was very serious that the Opposition was alleging that a public officer had acted in a way which betrayed Malta's interests. The government would produce witnesses as well as the minutes of the meetings referred to, in order to show that the Opposition was wrongly interpreting the Wikileaks document, which, in any case, was only the version of one side.

He said the purpose of the meetings held by Mr Cachia Caruana was for Malta to be given to access to Nato documents without needing to join Partnership for Peace. After time passed and these efforts failed, other decisions were taken.

The committee was briefly suspended until Dr Gonzi was called to give evidence.