- The minister’s stress must rectify governance defects.
- Raise the questions divide into PTI for having attended the meeting.
- Imran has never attended a parliamentary security meeting as PM: Bilawal.
The power coalition castigated Pakistan Tehreek-e-insaf (PTI) on Tuesday for skipping the camera meeting of the national security committee, summoned in the middle of growing terrorism across the country.
“It is necessary to rectify defects in governance, and if PTI establishes conditions on this subject, it cannot be called patriotism,” said Defense Minister Khawaja Muhammad Aif Geo News “AAJ Shahzeb Khanzada Kay Sath” program.
Reunion in the camera was held while Pakistan is struggling with a new wave of terrorism, with security forces and police facing increasingly frequent attacks.
The meeting was followed by Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, Chief of the Army Staff (COAS) Asim Munnir, Director General of Inter-Services Services (DG ISI), Lieutenant-General Asim Malik, Ministers in chief of the four provinces and other senior officials.
The main opposition alliance, Tehreek Tahaffuz-i-ayeen Pakistan (TTAP), has chosen not to attend the meeting, citing the absence of the founder of PTI, Imran Khan, which is imprisoned in the Adiala de Rawalpindi prison.
Answering a question from Khanzada, the Minister of Defense questioned the gap within the former ruling party, noting that an important faction of PTI wanted to attend the crucial meeting.
“(The chief minister of KP) Ali Amin Gandapur attended the meeting … He has not shown no deception and even approved the deliberations held at the meeting,” he added.
Asif noted that the meeting focused on the revival of the national action plan and its efficiency, which has decreased in the past four to five years.
He highlighted the role of the military by guaranteeing internal and external security, declaring that the old ones should mainly be the responsibility of the police.
The Minister recalled that during the mandate of the PTI, the government of the time had informed the legislators of a plan aimed at paying 4,000 to 5,000 people in the country.
“No politician requests a liberation or a request for parole,” he said, adding that despite the legal problems of the party founder, PTI remains active in the political arena.
Meanwhile, the president of the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP), Bilawal Bhutto, said that Imran had never attended a parliamentary security meeting during his mandate as Prime Minister.
“Not on terrorism, not on cashmere or on Indian aggression. Today, he is not a member of the Parliament and it was a meeting of the National Committee for National Security of Parliament (and) PTI PTI would now insist,” he wrote on X.
Bilawal noted that it was the Pakistani duty to put the country over politics in terms of war.
“Imran approves the jump meeting”
In addition, Imran’s lawyer, Faisal Chaudhry, said that he had a detailed meeting with the party founder in Adiala prison.
According to Charthry, the founder of the PTI qualified the boycott as the meeting of the National Security Committee as the right decision.
“He asked what type of consensus that the government hopes to achieve by putting the touch of the country’s largest political party,” said Chaudhry.
Imran said, “Keep me in prison a whole life if you have to, but I will never bow against oppression and fascism.” He also stressed that only political parties have the capacity to unite the country.