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pti-PTI
Islamabad, July 27: One yr after Prime Minister Imran Khan described slain Al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden as a “shaheed” (martyr), Pakistan’s info minister on Sunday clarified that it was a “slip of the tongue” by his boss.
Talking in Parliament on June 25 final yr, Khan stated the American forces entered Pakistan and killed bin Laden with out informing the federal government after which everybody began abusing his nation.
“I do not suppose there is a nation which supported the conflict on terror and needed to face embarrassment for it. Pakistan was additionally overtly blamed for US’ failure in Afghanistan,” Khan had stated.
“For Pakistanis throughout the globe, it was an embarrassing second when the People got here and killed Osama bin Laden at Abottabad…martyred him. The entire world began abusing us after that. Our ally got here inside our nation and killed somebody with out informing us. And, 70,000 Pakistanis died due to US’ conflict on terror,” he instructed lawmakers, drawing criticism from the Opposition in addition to from the media.
Bin Laden, then the world’s most needed terrorist, was killed by US Navy Seals in a covert army operation within the Pakistani garrison metropolis of Abbottabad in Could, 2011. Talking on Geo Information programme Jirga, aired on Sunday, Data Minister Fawad Chaudhry stated, “It was a slip of the tongue. He had clarified it,” the minister stated whereas referring to Khan’s controversial remarks.
The controversy surfaced once more final week when International Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi shunned calling Osama bin Laden a terrorist in an interview with Afghanistan’s Tolo Information. When the interviewer quoted Prime Minister Imran as calling bin Laden a martyr, Qureshi stated: Nicely, once more. Out of context. He (the PM) was quoted out of context. And, a specific part of the media pair it up.
Requested if he would disagree, the overseas minister paused for some time after which stated: I’ll let it go, the Daybreak newspaper reported. The main Pakistani in an editorial famous that Qureshi’s refusal to name bin Laden a terrorist in an interview with an Afghan media outlet is perplexing and defies logic.
“There are occasions to be diplomatic and parry sticky questions. Nonetheless, this definitely did not look like a type of cases,” the Daybreak stated. “Mr Qureshi may have used this chance to obviously state that Pakistan considers the late Al Qaeda mastermind a terrorist. Nonetheless, his non-committal feedback despatched the unsuitable message to a world viewers,” it identified.
“Pakistan’s high management must be completely clear relating to describing fighters like bin Laden,” the editorial harassed. When requested about Qureshi’s remarks by Tolo Information anchor, Data Minister Chaudhry stated the overseas minister’s refusal to name bin Laden a terrorist may need needed to do along with his need to “transfer forwards, as a substitute of wanting on the previous”.
The data minister stated a clarification had been issued final yr by Prime Minister Imran’s spokesperson after his remarks. He emphasised that Pakistan had rendered essentially the most sacrifices within the conflict towards terrorism. “Our place is fully clear,” the senior chief of Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf stated, including that “when our personal media exaggerate issues then, after all, the overseas [media] will decide them up from native sources.”