As political tensions in the nation rise, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif on Thursday called a multi-party meeting to examine the “important challenges” Pakistan is now facing. This action is being viewed as a significant development.
The MPC will take place in Islamabad on February 7, according to a statement from information minister Marriyum Aurangzeb. PTI chairman and former prime minister Imran Khan have also been offered an invitation.
Party leaders Pervez Khattak and Asad Qaiser received the invitation on behalf of the PTI from the former federal minister and speaker Sardar Ayaz Sadiq.
The minister has also requested that the PTI designate two delegates to attend the provincial apex committee meeting that would take place in Peshawar today (Friday).
The committee, which was established in 2015 as a result of the attack on the Army Public School to oversee the execution of the National Action Plan (NAP) against terrorism, will meet at the Governor House and be made up of all interested parties, including members of the law enforcement and intelligence communities.
The situation that has developed since the attack on Peshawar’s police lines on January 30 and the improvement of the capacities of the police and Counter-Terrorism Department will be discussed at the meeting of the top committee, according to the official announcement.
The invitation, which came three days after the devastating suicide assault in Peshawar that killed over 100 people, mostly cops, was not officially announced by the PTI, though.
In addition to the significant security challenges brought on by a resurgence in the operations of the banned Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan, the MPC also takes place while the nation deals with one of the worst economic crises in its history.
A number of political parties have demanded that the topic be brought up at a joint session of parliament and that the military leadership be informed.
Since the Peshawar blast, a war of words is going in between the leaders of the ruling coalition and the PTI, blaming each other for the recent rise in terrorism. Parties in the ruling coalition blame the recent wave of terror on the ‘wrong policy’ of the previous PTI government to engage militants and allow them to resettle in Pakistan’s tribal areas.
Defense Minister Khawaja Asif and Interior Minister Rana Sanaullah cited behind-closed-doors briefings given to legislators by the then-military leadership during the PTI’s tenure, after the Taliban took control of Kabul, calling the decision to resettle TTP militants “faulty” during a recent National Assembly session.
The military minister argued that the briefings were “inconclusive” and that they only provided information on choices that had already been made and were never approved by the parliament.
8,000 militants and 25,000 of their family members, including children, should be given the option to surrender in front of the law, the prior government had notified the assembly at the time, according to Rana Sanallah.
The interior minister remarked, “Maybe this strategy was formed with intentions, but the decision proved to be wrong. The nation is suffering now as a result of this policy.
The JUI-F in particular opposed the idea of conducting another military operation against the tribal areas, arguing that similar operations in the past had not yielded any results and had instead caused significant suffering to the local population. As a result, the National Assembly was divided on the issue.
