ISLAMABAD: The Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf hit back at the ruling PML-N and the opposition PPP on Friday for blaming PTI chief Imran Khan for postponement of an all parties conference (APC) planned by the government to evolve a national security policy.
In a strongly-worded handout, the party’s information secretary Dr Shireen Mazari said the government wasn’t fully ready to go ahead with the APC and to hide its lack of preparedness was blaming the PTI chief.
After Mr Khan left for London on July 8 for a medical check-up, Senator Parvez Rashid, chief spokesperson for the government and the Prime Minister’s Office, said since the government wanted the presence of heads of all political parties at the conference, it had deferred the sitting for awhile.
Senator Rashid particularly mentioned Imran Khan and said he had personally conveyed to him the government’s message about the holding of conference.
Ms Mazari said the government was still in the process of drafting a presentation on the national security policy for the APC and not ready to hold the meeting. She said the PTI was fully prepared to participate in the conference and put forward its proposals and it had nothing to do with Mr Khan’s trip to the UK.
Ms Mazari criticised Leader of the Opposition in the National Assembly Syed Khursheed Shah of the PPP and said that before blaming the PTI chief for the delay he should first try to know real reasons for the postponement of the conference which, according to her, was because of the government’s un-preparedness.
Mr Shah had said the issue of national security should not be linked to one individual and Mr Khan should have given preference to the matter over his personal visit to the UK. The PPP urged the government to immediately convene the conference because security had become the biggest problem in the country.
The government had on July 4 announced that the APC would be held on July 12 (Friday). But later Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan, who has been tasked by the prime minister to contact political leaders, clarified that July 12 was a proposed, and not a final, date for the conference.
Ms Mazari said the extensive government and media campaign targeting Mr Khan was based on lies and misrepresentation of facts. She said Mr Khan had left for London after waiting for the government to act on his request for a meaningful meeting on counter-terrorism beyond usual APC rhetoric, for which he was to postpone his medical trip to the UK.
Secondly, she said, the government had informed the PTI leaders about the meeting only a few days before the announcement and during that time Mr Khan had not been contacted directly at all. The first direct contact was made on the night of Mr Khan’s departure but it proved unsuccessful.
Ms Mazari said Mr Khan’s physical condition had made it impossible for him to postpone his medical consultation in view of life-threatening injuries he had suffered. “Those making a mockery of his injuries and the urgency for medical consultation are not only medically ignorant but also deliberately malicious.”
She clarified that at no time did Mr Khan ever state that he would postpone his UK trip because that was not an option. Such reports are simply rumours. And more importantly, she underlined, Mr Khan’s absence from the country shouldn’t be an issue for the government because he had nominated party’s representatives for the APC and a set of suggestions and demands had been prepared.