Behind closed doors: Imran pleads for candid talks with PM, Kayani

PTI chief says the meeting should be held before the All Parties Conference.

ISLAMABAD:

Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) chief Imran Khan on Thursday renewed an appeal for a special session with Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and Chief of Army Staff (COAS) General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani to discuss Pakistan’s so-called understanding with the United States on drone strikes.

“I, once again, want to put forward my request for a closed-door meeting to ascertain all the facts,” Imran Khan said in a statement issued here on Thursday. But Imran made it clear that the proposed meeting should be held prior to the All Parties Conference (APC).

“The APC is being held to formulate a comprehensive counter-terror policy relevant to on-the-ground facts and not mere political rhetoric.”

The PTI chairman says he is also curious about PM Nawaz’s meeting with General Kayani two months ago.

As a matter of policy, Imran said, the present government should inform political leaders about the nature of its understanding with the US. “Is the International Monetary Fund (IMF) package part of the understanding on Pakistan remaining a party in the war on terror?” Imran asked.

The public also wants to probe whether the military is on the same page as the civilian leadership because, he observed, without this clarity, no dialogue or agreement can proceed on the issue of counter-terrorism policy.

Imran Khan also claimed that the government had been refusing to take political leaders into confidence and had even lied to the people. So the truth as it were tends to come out in leaked bits of news, either through Wikileaks or books written by US authors, as happened in the case of President Zardari’s covert assent to drones.

Published in The Express Tribune, July 19^th, 2013.