NSC word

The ‘letter-gate’ once again came up for debate at the level of the National Security Committee, the highest civil-military body for coordination on security issues. On Friday, the committee met for a second time to discuss the cable communiqué from Washington, as former prime minister Imran Khan continues to harp on the tune that his government was sent packing under a US conspiracy, to which insiders were complicit.

However, the NSC meeting, chaired by Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, made it clear that the communiqué contained nothing that hints at any foreign conspiracy. The good thing is that the former envoy to the US, Asad Majeed, was also part of the Friday’s NSC meeting, and he shared his piece of mind. This is for the third time that the assumption of conspiracy has been shunned, as apart from two NSC meetings, the same was categorically pronounced by the Director General ISPR, Major General Babar Iftikhar, to the media last week.

The NSC, meanwhile, also reiterated its earlier stance that wording of the communiqué constitutes a “blatant interference in the internal affairs of Pakistan”. Previously too the NSC, which met under ex-PM Imran Khan, had termed the interference “unacceptable under any circumstances”, and decided to serve a demarche. While the NSC dismissing allegations of any foreign conspiracy should put to rest the debate on regime change, the reiteration of “blatant interference” provides enough room to keep the debate alive. That is why Imran Khan, addressing a presser yesterday, insisted that his claim of there being a foreign conspiracy against his government had proven “true” in the wake of the second NSC meeting too.

What’s ahead now? The need of the hour is to call it a day over the ongoing witch-hunt, which has led to a diplomatic standoff. Secondly, the deep-rooted political polarisation is not helping anyone, and it is merely leading to instability as well as a distaste as far as relations with the United States are concerned. Diplomats across the board firmly believe that the strong language of the communication is condemnable, and it was unwarranted. Going further into details to smell a rat will mess up the mosaic.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 24^th, 2022.

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