ISLAMABAD - Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi on Friday dispelled the rumours about any kind of National Reconciliation Order (NRO) and said that there would be no such deal as the PML-N was not in favour of such a deal. Rumours of a deal between the establishment and the PML-N leadership are echoing in the Federal capital, however, the Prime Minister while dispelling these rumours, questioned those people who themselves signed the deal (NRO) were nowadays giving lecture on morality.

The NRO was a Pakistani law and not of the Saudi Arabian government, he added.

In an interview with a private television channel, the Prime Minister said that he did not understand why rumours were being spread about the recent visits of former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and Punjab Chief Minister Shehbaz Sharif to Saudi Arabia.

They were on routine private visits to Saudi Arabia, to perform Umrah, he said and ,added, that both the brothers had lived there for eight years and had relations.

“It is not a proper way to spread such kind of rumours,” he added.

About the government’s reaction to the recent statement of US President Donald Trump against Pakistan, he said that National Security Committee (NSC) debated the issue in detail and gave a response, while the Federal Cabinet also gave its reaction and endorsed the NSC reaction in that regard.

The Prime Minister said that he was representing a government and believed that there should be no individual response to such issues. Trump’s tweet was individual and tweets had no value as for as relations between two countries were concerned, he added.

Prime Minister Abbasi said that Pakistan had fought the war against terrorism not only for itself but also for the entire world and had given a lot of sacrifices in that war.

He said that many of the countries had supported Pakistan in that regard, adding, “We have given response to such kinds of allegations at all forums.”

He said that attacks inside Pakistan were being perpetrated from the Afghan soil and it wanted a peaceful and stable Afghanistan, besides it was ready to play its role in that regard, the Prime Minister said.

Now the world should come forward to bring stability to the war-torn country, he added. To a question about any tension between the government and the establishment, the Prime Minister said that everyone had fears from the establishment, adding, that he was a representative of the PML-N and his job was to complete affairs of the government, give stability to politics, hold on time transparent election so that the next government took power and democratic journey continued.

To a question, he said that the government was trying its best to perform and come up to expectations of the people, adding, that a lot of development projects in energy sector and infrastructure had been completed, while some projects were near to completion.

About toeing the policy of former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, he said that he was sitting as Prime Minister of the PML-N and those criticising him should at least tell the people how many projects they completed during their tenure, while he would tell them the projects completed by former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and his government.

He said that tenure of the present government would complete in June and the PML-N government would go to the next polls on the basis of its performance,

He said a record number of development work had been carried out by the present government during the last four and a half years.

About the Senate polls, he said that he had no such information that Senate election were not being held.

The Prime Minister said that technocrat government had no chance in the Constitution and added that the present government would complete its Constitutional term till June 2018.  He said that there were only two ways to topple an elected government – one is to dissolve the Assembly and the other one is through vote of no confidence, while there was no third option in the Constitution to oust an elected government.

To a question about nominee of the PML-N for the next Prime Ministership, he said, it would be decided by the party.

Prime Minister Abbasi said that the government had successfully added 10,000 MW of electricity to the national grid, while 15,000 MW projects were in the pipeline.

He said that only 20,000 MW of electricity had been added to the national grid since the creation of Pakistan.

While currently there was no shortage of electricity in the country and only those areas were affected where there were line losses, he added.  He said that China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) was a game changer not only for Pakistan but for the entire region.

The work on power and infrastructure projects under the CPEC and Gwadar Port was in full swing, he said.

He said that drinking water issue of Gwader city would be resolved on priority, as the Federal government was providing Rs 45 billion to Balochistan government annually only for drinking water projects.

The Prime Minister again rejected allegations of any kickbacks in LNG project and said that he was ready to accept full responsibility of the project.  He said that everything about the LNG was on record and any allegation on such a vital project was against the national interest and also tarnished relations between the two countries. He said that the LNG project would earn about three billion dollars profit to the national exchequer every year. He said that the LNG was even cheaper than the Pak-Iran Gas Pipeline Project and Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan and India (TAPI) gas pipeline project.