Days after the ouster of Imran Khan-led Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) government, Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR), the media wing of the Pakistani military categorically rejected "foreign conspiracy" allegations of Imran Khan to topple his government, as well as the involvement of the Army in any way in the no-confidence motion.
Referring to Pakistan's National Security Council (NSC) meeting, in which the alleged "threat letter" received from the Pakistani embassy in the US was discussed days before the vote on the no-confidence motion, Director General (DG)-ISPR Babar Iftikhar said that although the contents of the meeting were confidential, however, the statement that was released after the meeting, nowhere mentioned the term "conspiracy".
"The words used are in front of you ... as I said ... the words used are clear. Is there any word such as conspiracy used in it? I think not," Babar said at a press conference telecasted on Geo News.
He went on to say that Inter Sevices Intelligence (ISI) had done its investigation on the alleged letter when it arrived and thereby gave its inputs to the NSC.
"If any foreign power tries to conspire against Pakistan we will not let it succeed," Iftikhar said.
He also rejected the involvement of the Pakistani Army in the no-confidence motion against Imran Khan in any manner, while also requesting the people and the political parties to "not drag the military into politics."
Talking about Imran Khan's allegations that the military had given him three options, ahead of the no-co0nfidence motion, the DG-ISPR said that it was rather the former Prime Minister who had approached the Army Chief for intervention and then the options were discussed.
"The options were not given by the establishment, Prime Minister's Office approached the Chief of Army Staff, when there was this deadlock (between political parties), PMO asked Army to intervene," DG-ISPR said.
"It is very unfortunate that our political parties were not ready to talk among themselves at that point... so the army chief and DG-ISI went to the PMO... it was there that these three scenarios were discussed... one scenario was that no-confidence motion goes as it is, second was that PM resigns and the third was that Opposition takes back no-confidence motion and PM dissolves the NA and goes for fresh elections," DG-ISPR further elaborated.
He further said that Imran Khan said that the third option of fresh elections was acceptable to him and he asked the Army Chief to talk to the Opposition on his behalf over that option.
DG-ISPR Babar Iftikhar addressed a multitude of questions on the recent political events and related topics, as well as declared that Army Chief General Qamar Javed Bajwa was not involved in any deal with Imran Khan's Opposition and that he did not seek an extension.
"Let me put this thing to rest today, Chief of Army Staff is neither seeking an extension nor will he accept an extension. No matter what, he will be retiring on the 29th of November 2022," Iftikhar said.
This comes a few days after Pakistan Army claimed that there was a "recent propaganda" campaign by some quarters to malign the country's military.
This statement was issued after the 79th Formation Commanders' Conference held at the General Headquarters in Rawalpindi.
This high-level meeting was attended by the country's army's corps commanders, principal staff officers, and Pakistan's Chief of Army Staff (COAS) General Qamar Javed Bajwa.
( With inputs from ANI )
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