PTI eager to talk to army but not to parties: Asif

ISLAMABAD: Defence Minister Khawaja Muhammad Asif told the National Assembly on Monday that the PTI leadership was desperate to secure an NRO and wanted to talk with the establishment and not with the political parties sitting in the Parliament.

Responding to the speech of the Opposition Leader Omar Ayub, he said the PTI leadership would not be able to hold talks with anyone unless they apologised for the May 9 violence. Asif said the PTI founder Imran Khan was brought up in the lap of the establishment and was addicted to the same behaviour. He said Imran recalled the same old good times but he forgot that the country now had a new military leadership and a new system.

“Bajwa, Shujaat and Faiz are no more but the PTI founder is addicted to the same lap,” he said. Asif said the PTI leadership should go ahead and hold talks with those whom they were begging time and again.

“We have no dispute with them; they can move ahead as they want,” he said observing that the PTI leadership would try some other way of begging for an NRO once the establishment refused.

He said the PTI spokesman Rauf Hassan had been begging for talks and every day he was giving statements in this connection. Asif pointed out that the PTI founder was also issuing statements from the prison that he would talk to the military leadership.

He asked if Mahmood Khan Achakzai would hold talks with the establishment. “He is in the House. Ask him if he will talk to the establishment,” he said.

He pointed out that the PTI leadership had also declared Mahmood Khan Achakzai as the opposition alliance head. “What would be the view of my brother Mahmood Khan Achakzai on the PTI’s stand that they will talk to establishment only?” he asked.

On a point of personal explanation, Mahmood Khan Achakzai said he would hold talks with every institution, including the establishment. “We want to talk to them not for guidance but to give them an honourable way,” he said.

He said they wanted to tell the establishment that they were a respected institution and should sit with the political leadership. “The whole political leadership, this parliament, Nawaz Sharif, Asif Zardari, Jamaat-e-Islami, and JUI-F are unanimous on the supremacy of the Constitution,” he said.

He said the country would come out of crises only when there was supremacy of the Constitution. “We all, including the army chief, should sit together to ponder over how to bring the country out of this unfortunate crisis”, he said, adding that everyone was involved in the creation of crisis.

Responding to the remarks of Khawaja Asif, the veteran politician said there was no exception that anybody was not brought up in the lap of the establishment. He said Nawaz Sharif had been saying that there should be talks with everyone but ‘today we are stabbing in each other’s back’.

Achakzai also requested the speaker to act as the custodian of the House and not as the PMLN member. Earlier, Opposition Leader in the National Assembly Omar Ayub said neither Imran Khan sought an NRO nor would he opt for the same in future.

He said it was Nawaz Sharif who proceeded abroad twice after getting the NRO. “Nawaz secured the first NRO from Musharraf and as per NRO-2, he left for London and the same has also been admitted by the PMLN leader,” he said.

Omar urged the Speaker Sardar Ayaz Sadiq to constitute a special committee on irregularities in defence services procurements as pointed out by Auditor General (AG) of Pakistan. He said according to news reports, there had been irregularities of Rs1.443 trillion in the defence services due to violation of various rules.

According to reports, he said the AG office received response to less than 200 out of 372 queries from the officials concerned on these irregularities. Omar Ayub said the Auditor General’s office had done its work after furnishing its findings.

There should be ratification of irregularities in defence services at all levels, he added. The judiciary should be independent to ensure the rule of law in the country. Omar advised the government to support the candidature of Imran Khan as the chancellor of Oxford University and celebrate if he was raised to the position.

“The Government should not demonstrate shortsightedness and be proud of achievement of the PTI founder who is a Pakistani and Muslim,” he said. The Speaker said the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) would take up the findings of Auditor General of Pakistan.