Who can dare ask me to step down: PM Imran Khan

ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister Imran Khan said on Thursday had any army chief attacked Kargil without asking him, he would have sacked him. 

“I am an elected prime minister; who has the courage to demand resignation from me?” he said and added the Pakistan Army is standing behind the democratic government and Nawaz Sharif is sitting outside and campaigning against the institutions, as there is no doubt that India is behind them. They are guilty, and we have planned to bring them back, he said in an interview to a private TV channel.

He said that India wanted to break Pakistan. He said that the army has changed and if it had not been so, the country would have been divided into three parts. “I am ready to leave the government but I will not give them (opposition) NRO,” Imran Khan maintained.

The prime minister said, “We have to think that the entire army has to be blamed for the mistakes of the army chief in the past. If a judge has done wrong, the entire judiciary has to be blamed. What is wrong is that everyone has to say bad things, lessons should be learnt from wrong decisions of the past, the job of the army is not to run the government, our judiciary and army have changed a lot.”

On the government-military relations, he said that the relations between the government and the army are historic, as the army stands behind the democratic government. We have always been of the view that there is no military solution to Afghanistan, the United States should not go to war, but when they do, they say take the path of power and dialogue if necessary, today the army stands by my policy.”

The prime minister said that the army was with us in maintaining good relations with India. The Indian pilot was caught and when it was decided to return him, the Pakistan Army stood by us. “Tell us one occasion when the army did not stand by the decision of the democratic government,” he remarked. Imran Khan alleged that Nawaz Sharif has never been a democrat, he was raised by General Jilani and Ziaul Haq. Nawaz Sharif was made a politician and today they have become super democrats.

He noted Nawaz Sharif always had problems with others, first with President Ghulam Ishaq Khan, then with General Asif Nawaz, later with his appointed General Pervez Musharraf, General Raheel Sharif and now with Qamar Javed Bajwa. “I had no issue with the military ever.”

The prime minister said that these people came to steal, our agencies ISI and MI are world class, they know their thefts, these people control the civil institutions including the judiciary. When they could not control Justice Sajjad Ali Shah, they attacked with sticks, gave briefcases to align the rest of the judiciary, their fight has always been that they wanted to control the army.

He termed Nawaz Sharif a coward and said that Pervez Musharraf was in Sri Lanka and behind him General Zia-uddin was made the army chief. “I am not such a cowardly man, these people do not come to run this country but to make money, the greatest power of man is not physical but moral and the government is run by the same moral power. Nawaz wanted to become Amir al-Momineen and control all institutions. They do not have a political mindset. Leadership in a democracy is accountable but they do not want to answer.”

Nawaz Sharif has become the second founder of MQM. He is campaigning against the army, India is helping Nawaz Sharif, he said and added that the army is an institution of the government. “I will use whatever institution is needed to run the government. Nawaz Sharif has grown up in a military nursery. He has been fighting with every army chief. He was never a democrat.”

PM Imran Khan said, “I am an elected prime minister. Who has the courage to ask me to resign? If the DG ISI had asked for my resignation, I would have asked him to resign. It is a government institution, we will use the institution to run the government. He cited Nawaz Sharif’s statement that General Zahirul Islam asked him to resign. “You were the Prime Minister, if you had courage you should have dismissed him,” he told Nawaz.

He added that the job of the military was not to run the government and that Pakistan Army is today completely with the democratic government and the harmony between the two was because they worked within their ambit.

General Bajwa, he noted, had told all the political parties from security point of view that if they would not do so, India was going to raise the security issue and he had held this meeting after asking from him. He contended that he had never been to any nursery and had come to this level by mobilising public and none had come to power this way.

He said, “Everyone knows that India promotes terrorism, India is trying to spread chaos in Gilgit-Baltistan, the people of Gilgit-Baltistan want their rights, Nawaz Sharif is sitting outside the country and campaigning against the army. Yes, India wants to break Pakistan.”

The prime minister said that Nawaz Sharif went abroad by lying. “We are thinking that he would not even be able to climb the stairs of the plane.” Imran Khan said, He (Nawaz) knows I will not give NRO so he keeps saying minus one, the opposition is putting pressure on the judiciary, NAB and the army. If we can take this pressure, Pakistan will become the country what it should have been.”

The prime minister said that dacoits have gathered to save their thefts, the country is ruined by dealing under the pressure of thieves, they have left the country in debt and are demanding answers from us. They have not left things to increase wealth in the country. If the opposition resigns, we will hold elections. I never said umpire’s finger means army. The umpire is only Allah.

“All my assets have been declared, they are available on the website, I do not have anonymous property or property outside the country; they put a wrong case on me to put pressure on Panama case,” Imran Khan said and warned that if anyone broke the law, he would be imprisoned one by one.

While lamenting the anti-institutions rhetoric of the PML-N Quaid, Imran Khan said Nawaz Sharif was playing a dangerous game against Pakistan with the backing of India.

“He (Nawaz Sharif) has 100 percent backing of India. He is a cowardly man and can do anything to save his money,” he said. “For God’s sake, open your eyes. See the situation in Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan and some other countries. “If we are safe today, it is due to our army. “If we did not have this army, Pakistan would have been disintegrated into three parts,” he remarked.