Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif on Thursday warned his predecessor Imran Khan against making provocative statements after the PTI chief predicted the division of Pakistan into three parts and said that the country could lose its nuclear arsenal.
Imran Khan in a controversial interview aired on Wednesday said that if the country's establishment does not make the right decisions, Pakistan could split into three parts and also lose its nuclear deterrent capabilities.
The ousted Prime Minister made these remarks in an interview with a private television channel.
"While I am in Turkey inking agreements, Imran Niazi is making naked threats against the country. If at all any proof was needed that Niazi is unfit for public office, his latest interview suffices. Do your politics but don't dare to cross limits & talk about division of Pakistan," Shehbaz said in a tweet.
When asked about his equation with the Pakistan establishment and prospects of him coming back to power, Imran Khan said, "The actual problem here is of Pakistan and the establishment. If the establishment does not take the right decision, then I will give it to you in writing that they will be destroyed, and the armed forces will be the first ones to be devastated."
"Pakistan will be broken in three parts," he added.
The PTI chairman Imran Khan warned that once the country's economy is destroyed, it would go into default, and the world would ask Pakistan to move towards denuclearisation -- as was done to Ukraine in the 1990s, The News International newspaper reported.
He also said that Pakistan is on the brink of "self-destruction" and will go "bankrupt."
Reacting to the former premier's comments, former president Asif Ali Zardari slammed Khan and said that no Pakistani could talk of tearing this country apart.
"This language is not of a Pakistani but of Modi. Imran Khan's power is not everything in the world, be brave and learn to stand on your feet and do politics now," he said.Zardari directed the Pakistan People's Party (PPP) workers to protest the remarks of Imran Khan throughout the country.
The PPP coalition partner Pakistan Muslim League Nawaz (PML-N) leader Talal Chaudhry said that having lost power, Imran Khan has started talking about the country breaking up and losing nuclear assets.
"We want the Supreme Court to answer whether or not we have the fundamental right to hold a peaceful protest. We will announce the date for our next long march as soon as the apex court rules on the petition," he told a social media conference in the provincial capital, as per the media portal.
This comes in the backdrop of a tiff between the federal and provincial governments in Punjab and the use of force during Imran Khan's "Azadi March" that led to large-scale clashes in Islamabad.
( With inputs from ANI )
Disclaimer: This post has been auto-published from an agency feed without any modifications to the text and has not been reviewed by an editor