Pakistan

NATO attack: PML-N to boycott joint session if held behind closed doors

Chaudhry Nisar says no resolution will be supported until earlier ones are implemented.

Express December 03, 2011

ISLAMABAD: If the parliament’s joint session on Nato’s attack in Mohmand Agency and the memogate scandal is held behind closed doors, the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) may boycott proceedings, the opposition party warned on Friday.

“We will not participate in any in-camera sitting of the Parliament. The government has nothing to tell the nation but has a lot to hide,” said Leader of the Opposition in the National Assembly Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan at a reception given by the Parliamentary Reporters Association (PRA).

Earlier, Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani had announced that he would call a joint session to discuss Nato’s overt attack in Mohmand Agency that killed 24 troops last Saturday and the memogate scandal. The prime minister, however, did not specify when the session would be held.

The PML-N leader further said that his party may not support any joint parliamentary resolution that may be moved in the upcoming session.

“Until the government implements the joint resolutions, PML-N parliamentarians will not support any new ones,” he added.

Nisar said that the government should summon a joint session before Muharram 10 on both the issues, adding that people have faith in the parliament, but the government has made it ineffective and shifted all powers to the Presidency.

The opposition leader also rejected the notion that the PML-N has been a “friendly opposition” and said his party was vibrant like no other opposition party in the past. “Point out any national interest issue on which the PML-N has not raised its voice,” Nisar said.

He claimed that the PML-N had filed a petition in the Supreme Court only for the “national interest” and had no ulterior motives. He brushed aside rumours that President Asif Ali Zardari has been declared a traitor in the petition and said that no such thing has been mentioned.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 3^rd, 2011.