‘WILL SPEAK TRUTH NO MATTER WHAT’: SHARIF STICKS TO STAND ON 26/11
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s top civilmilitary body on Monday condemned former prime minister Nawaz Sharif’s remarks about the Mumbai attacks, describing them as “incorrect and misleading”, but the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz leader insisted he had done nothing wrong.
Sharif’s remarks, made during an interview with Dawn newspaper last week, triggered a row in his country as he pointed to a Pakistani hand in the 2008 attacks. He also appeared to suggest the military was meddling in politics and had a hand in his removal from office by the Supreme Court last year because he was trying to end support for anti-India terror groups.
A meeting of the National Security Committee, which Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi convened at the nudging of the angry army, reviewed Sharif’s comments on the Mumbai attacks and “unanimously termed this statement as incorrect and misleading”, according to an official statement.
The NSC believed it was “very unfortunate that the opinion arising out of either misconceptions or grievances was being presented in disregard of concrete facts and realities” and “unanimously rejected the allegations and condemned the fallacious assertions”, the statement added.
The meeting was attended by army chief Gen Qamar Bajwa, the two other service chiefs, ISI head Naveed Mukhtar and National Security Advisor Nasser Janjua.
This was a rare rebuke of Sharif by a government run by his PML-N party, reflecting the growing tension between the ousted premier and the military.
But Sharif stuck by his remarks on Monday while talking to reporters outside an anticorruption court in Islamabad. “What did I say in the interview that was wrong?” he asked.
He rejected suggestions that the comments were falsely attributed to him and said he would continue to speak the truth. “Former president Pervez Musharraf, former interior minister Rehman Malik and former National Security Advisor Maj Gen Mahmud Durrani had already confirmed (what I said),” he said.
Following the NSC meeting, Prime Minister Abbasi told a news conference in Islamabad that he had met Sharif and the former premier had told him he was “misquoted”. Abassi also said Sharif told him his remarks were “misrepresented by Indian media”.
Abbasi also contended that the NSC had not condemned Sharif directly, but the incorrect reporting of the interview. “As the prime minister, I stand with Nawaz Sharif,” he said, adding Sharif would remain the PML-N’s leader.