Ayman al-Zawahiri assassination: PTI asks govt to answer whether or not Pakistan’s airspace was used

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) on Friday demanded a clarification from the government on whether Pakistan’s airspace was used or not to take down al Qaeda chief Ayman al-Zawahiri in Afghanistan by the US earlier this week.

After a meeting of the party’s political committee chaired by the PTI chairman, Imran Khan, PTI leader Fawad Chaudhry told a press conference that “there must come a clarification whether Pakistan’s airspace was used or not to kill Ayman al-Zawahiri in Afghanistan by the US drones”.

At the same time, he said that the political committee of the party would finalise a date for a grand protest in Islamabad within the next 48 hours in which we will give the final ultimatum to the ‘imported regime’ to dissolve the assemblies and call fresh elections without any further delay.

“We’d had enough as we gave enough time to this ‘imported regime’, thinking it might respect the mandate of the people but it only cares about its graft cases and this was the reason it came into power through a backdoor channel. Now it is the time to send them packing and we will do so,” he warned.

He said that the party can hardly give a month to the “imported regime” to announce elections, or be ready for the next line of action of the party as we cannot tolerate any further.

Chaudhry continued that Pakistan enjoyed cordial relations with Afghanistan when Imran Khan was the prime minister, adding “we will not allow the imported regime to allow the US to carry out drone attacks inside Afghanistan using Pakistan’s airspace as it will spoil our relations with the neighbouring country”.

“It’s very important that concerned institutions i.e. the Defence Ministry and the Foreign Office should clear their position on this issue. Pakistan had to pay a heavy price for things which took place in Afghanistan,” he added. He said that the nation needs to be taken into confidence in this regard as allowing use of Pakistan’s airspace to carry out drone attacks inside Afghanistan would have serious repercussions as we had already paid a heavy price for it in the past.

“If we did not get an answer [whether Pakistan airspace was used or not], the nation has every right to stage protest for keeping them in complete dark regarding the drone attack which killed al Qaeda chief in Afghanistan,” he added.

He said that the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) seems in a hurry to take actions against the PTI and its chief Imran Khan but it will not make any difference, adding not a single person trusts the ECP as it has lost its credibility.

“This is the reason we demand an immediate resignation of the chief election commissioner and its members, and we will not accept any election under these people who have become controversial,” he maintained.

He said that the ECP has become a “subsidiary” of the ruling Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) and the ECP is playing a big role in the ongoing malicious campaign against the PTI and its chairman.

He also hinted at dissolving the provincial assemblies of Punjab and Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa – the two provinces where the PTI is in power – if shown some seriousness by the federal government, saying a free and fair election is the only way out to steer the country from the prevailing political and economic crises.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2022