Lettergate Scam
-DG ISPR says he did not issue any political statements
By Asghrar Ali Mubarak
ISLAMABAD: The Director General Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) Major General Babar Iftikhar has said that it is for the government to make a decision on the formation a judicial commission to probe the ‘foreign conspiracy’ narrative being advanced by the PTI and that if any such commission is formed the military would cooperate with it.
The military spokesperson issued a statement hours after PTI leaders Asad Umar and Shireen Mazari held a press conference and called for the formation of a judicial commission.Gen Iftikhar said that the former government, too, had the option of forming a judicial commission over the issue.
He said that in the National Security Committee (NSC) meeting — held at the end of march before the removal of Imran Khan — it was made clear that there was no evidence of a foreign conspiracy against Pakistan.
The military spokesperson said that in the NSC meeting none of the services chiefs said that a conspiracy had been hatched. Asad Umar, in the press conference, claimed that a senior military officer at the NSC meeting underscored that facts and opinion must be separated and then he read from the communique – sent by then-Pakistan ambassador to Washington — and said that this part was based on facts and the other represented opinion.
The facts that were written there were a direct threat to Pakistan, Umar claimed. The PTI leader also asked the military spokesperson to not give interpretations to political issues.
DG ISPR said that he discussed the NSC meeting in detail on Tuesday on a TV show and that he had not made any political comments. The ISPR chief, in a phone-in conversation, on a TV show on Tuesday had said that both NSCs meetings were told in explicit details that there is no evidence of any conspiracy.
The first of these meetings were held at the end of March when Imran Khan was still in power and a statement was issued from the Prime Minister Office after the meeting.
The PTI at the time had claimed that the NSC statement validated PTI claims about foreign conspiracy. However, at the
Wednesday’s press conference Umar admitted the March NSC meeting did not conclude that the no-confidence motion against Imran Khan was part of a grand conspiracy.
Umar and Mazari said that the ‘foreign conspiracy’ claim was a PTI “viewpoint” and Imran Khan was not asking for others to blindly subscribe to it but that the issue must be probed by a judicial commission. General Iftikhar said that the agenda for the March NSC meeting had already been set and all the services chiefs and the DG ISI were invited as it was an issue of national security.
