WASIM IQBAL

RAWALPINDI: Pak Army has made it clear on Friday that the federal government requested Chief of Army Staff (COAS) to facilitate the government to resolve the current impasse at a one-to-one meeting between Prime Minister and COAS on Thursday at the PM House.

In a message posted on twitter, spokesman for Pak Army Maj-Gen Bajwa stated: “[The] COAS was asked by the Government to play a facilitative role for resolution of current impasse, in yesterday’s meeting, at PM House”.

Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif informed the National Assembly on Friday rejected media reports that it was not he who requested the army to come to his rescue, but it was Chief Pakistan Tahreek-e-Insaf Imran Khan and Chief Pakistan Awami Tehreek, Dr Tahirul Qadri who approached General Raheel Sharif to play the role of a mediator. Dr Qadri swiftly reacted to Prime Minister’s statement: “I categorically states that the Prime Minister asked the army to intervene. I am saying, on record, that we did not make any request to the army to intervene.”

Qadri further said that he had never spoken to the army chief until their meeting on Thursday. He added that Imran too made no request to the army chief to intervene or mediate. He said that the Prime Minister made the statement after he felt his government was losing strength.

Imran told his supporters that his party had not asked Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif to involve the Army to broker a settlement between the government and protesting parties. Later in evening, Minister for Interior Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan claimed that the statement released by the ISPR first came to him and he showed that statement to the prime minister who also approved it. Reacting to Minister for Interior’s statement, defence sources said it is a general practice that ISPR sends statements to all relevant government departments prior to their formal issuance. However, ISPR did not officially issue any statement.