LAHORE, June 25 (NNI): Defence Minister Khawaja Asif Tuesday said that the government will allay concerns of political parties regarding the new military operation, declaring that Operation Azm-e-Istehkam has no political objectives.
Addressing a news conference in Lahore on Tuesday, Khawaja Asif said the government would try to remove the worried highlighted by Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-F (JUI-F) and Awami National Party (ANP) will be removed.
Khawaja Asif said consensus will be evolved in the Parliament on the new military operation.
The defence minister said that Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) Chief Minister Ali Amin Gandapur did not oppose the operation during the Apex Committee meeting, rather he supported the plan in cautious words.
The minister said the operation will be set into motion after getting comprehensive intelligence reports, especially in Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, and the contours of the operation will become clear in a couple of days.
Kh Asif said the judiciary would also have to support this effort for national security. He said the support of the bureaucracy and the media will also be surely needed.
About the voices raised by the opposition, he said political parties must take a stand for the country and not for the vote bank.
He also mentioned that operation was required to root out the bases of TTP (Tehreek-Taliban Pakistan) and other terrorist groups who were allowed [by the then Imran Khan-led PTI government] to return and resettle in the tribal region. They were using their hideouts to carry out attacks in other parts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Khawaja Asif added.
He said that notorious leaders of the Taliban were pardoned, and around 6,000 terrorists were given safe havens here. He added that if the terrorists are not controlled in KP and Balochistan, they will spread to other provinces.
The minister said the wars fought during the era of General Ziaul Haq and General Pervez Musharraf were in American interest, but the war against terrorism is our own.
Kh Asif said peace was established after Operation Zarb-e-Azb and Rid al-Fasaad. He added that peace has come to Afghanistan, but terrorism is still happening in Pakistan.
Kh Asif said it would not be appropriate to draw a parallel between Operation Azm-e-Istehkam and the past operations because it aims to completely eradicate terrorism from the country.
The minister also said that it is not right to create confusion regarding the operation as it is a continuation of the National Action Plan.
The National Action Plan’s Apex Committee had on Saturday announced a new anti-terrorism operation titled, “Operation Azm-e-Istehkam,” or Resolve for Stability
“This operation will go through its process before it is enforced,” Kh Asif said, adding “It will be presented in the cabinet after which there will be a discussion on it in the House. A consensus of the House on it will be built The opposition parties and the government’s allies will be given a suitable amount of time to debate it and their questions and reservations will be answered.”
Asif said the government did not want to achieve any “political objectives” through the operation. Rather, he said it wanted to combat the surge in militancy in the country and eliminate it for good.
He called on politicians, the media, judiciary and armed forces to support the operation.
Explaining the nature of the proposed plan while refuting the misunderstandings being created by some circles, the defence minister said the operation would be intelligence based in its nature to specifically targeting the terrorists.
It won’t resemble the operation held previously in Swat when the military had to move in to retake the control of the region, resulting in displacement of local population, he said in response to some questions.
Answering a question, Khawaja Asif said the terrorists were trying to sabotage economic development and Chinese investment in Pakistan – a clear reference to the repeated attacks carried out on Chinese nationals working in different parts of the country.
China has been sharing his concerns on this issue again and again. That’s why Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif in his recent visit to China had assured the hosts of providing blanket security of its nationals and companies in an attempt to convince them to invest in Pakistan.
Later, a top Chinese official during his stay in Islamabad again listed security as the biggest concern and threat to future of any investment by his country.
Earlier, in a statement released Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif cleared the air about Azm-e-Istehkam, saying that the government is not considering a “large-scale military operation” that would cause locals to be displaced.
“Azm-e-Istehkam is a multi-domain, multi-agency, whole of the system national vision for enduring stability in Pakistan,” a statement from Sharif’s office said. “It is meant to reinvigorate and re-energize the ongoing implementation of the Revised National Action Plan, which was initiated after the national consensus across the political spectrum.”
He said the new anti-terrorism operation will include political, diplomatic, legal and information prongs, apart from already continuing operations by law enforcement agencies.
Pakistan has witnessed a surge in militant attacks in recent months, many of them claimed by the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), which pledges allegiance to, and gets its name from, the Afghan Taliban, but is not directly a part of the group that now rules Afghanistan. Its stated aim is to impose Islamic religious law in Pakistan, as the Taliban have done in Afghanistan.
Islamabad blames the recent uptick in attacks on Afghanistan, saying TTP leaders have taken refuge there and run camps to train militants to launch attacks inside Pakistan. Kabul says rising violence in Pakistan is a domestic issue for Islamabad and it does not allow militants to operate on its territory. NNI
