Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) vice president Maryam Nawaz Wednesday denied reports of a meeting between Chief of Army Staff (COAS) General Qamar Javed Bajwa and any representative of former prime minister Nawaz Sharif.
Reacting to a meeting between parliamentary leaders and military leadership, Maryam said that meeting was called on Gilgit-Baltistan, which is a political issue and such issues should be discussed in the parliament not GHQ.
She further said that political leadership should not be invited for such meetings nor politicians should attend them. If anyone has to discuss such issues, he should approach parliament.
She said that an elected prime minister was sacked on plea of an absconder however, tactics of oppression cannot last forever. Talking about APC, she said that decisions of the conference will be honored.
On the other hand, Federal Minister for Railways Sheikh Rashid has claimed that PML-N leadership met military leadership twice in last two months. “In one meeting, Khawaja Asif and former interior minister Ahsan Iqbal held an hours long meeting with military leadership while in other meeting Shehbaz Sharif and I sat on same table and ate dinner”.
Sheikh Rashid further said that meeting was called on Gilgit-Baltistan but all political issues were openly discussed.
Ahsan Iqbal has denied reports of any one-on-one meeting with army leadership and said that Sheikh Rashid is lying about the meeting.
Earlier in the week, it emerged that the army chief and the head of the ISI had held a meeting with key opposition figures before their multiparty conference and counselled them to refrain from dragging the military into political issues.
The September 16 meeting was attended by about 15 opposition figures including Leader of the Opposition in the National Assembly Shehbaz Sharif, PPP Chairman Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari, Jamaat-i-Islami emir Sirajul Haq, ANP’s Amir Haider Hoti, JUI-F’s Asad Mahmood, PML-N leaders Khawaja Asif and Ahsan Iqbal, PPP’s Senator Sherry Rehman and a few government ministers.