Gilani assures neutrality: Nisar

ISLAMABAD - Prime Minister Syed Yousuf Raza Gillani has assured the PML-N Chief Nawaz Sharif that the federal government would remain neutral in the formation of the Azad Jammu Kashmir government. The Opposition Leader in the National Assembly and the PML-N central leader, Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan, told a press conference here in the Punjab House on Tuesday. Nisar said that PML-N Chief talked to Prime Minister Gilani the other day and apprised him of allegations by MLAs from the opposition that some functionaries of the federal government were trying to help install a PPP-led government through horse-trading. Prime Minister Gilani responded positively and assured that he would look into these allegations, Nisar Ali Khan said, adding political interference in AJK would have adverse implications for Pakistan. While referring to MLAs from opposition, he said the Federal Government was openly interfering in political matters of AJK to form a PP-led government on the basis of only 7 seats in the AJK legislative Assembly. The incumbent rulers, he was of the view, have not learnt any lesson from their past mistakes and were still threatening dissolution of AJK Legislative Assembly under Article 56 of the 1973 Constitution if they failed to realize the desired political objectives. Nisar said that despite the fact that Chief of the Army Staff Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kiyani had pledged to keep the Pakistan Army away from politics, but evidence suggests that intelligence agencies were still involved in the AJK political matters. He continued that AJK was not part of Pakistan in accordance with the constitution and law, therefore the federal government should keep itself away from political matters of Azad valley, Nisar said, making it clear that PML-N had no political stakes in the Legislative Assembly of the AJK. Nisar said PML-N would requisition an emergency meeting of the National Assembly if elections for office of the AJK Prime Minister were rigged. Answering a question about the fate of the National Reconciliation Ordinance (NRO), he said that PLM-N along with other parliamentary parties would resist its passage to become a law. Condemning the recent bombing in Iran, he said, the government should remove reservation of our neighbour brotherly country. The incumbent government is pursing policies of former President Gen. (Retd) Pervez Musharraf, he said. Our foreign policy is running on a single track and today a brotherly country like Iran is raising finger on Pakistan, he said. The reservation of Iran should be removed immediately, he said. The trial of former President Gen. (Retd) Pervez Musharraf under article 6 of the constitution is very important for genuine democracy in the country, he said. He went on to say the remnants of Musharraf are still alive in both the houses. He reiterated that the operation in South Waziristan and its potential fallout on Punjab province had figured in their meeting with Army Chief General Kayani.

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