Minister for Information and Broadcasting Dr Firdous Ashiq Awan Wednesday said the government believed in taking the political parties on board on all national issue but there should be no dictation from any party.
Talking to media persons outside the Parliament House, she said, “We respect the point of view of Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz but the government will not take any decision on the basis of any dictation.” She said a joint session of the Parliament had been called for tomorrow (Friday) and the government would make decision with a consensus among all parties after the briefing on the Abbottabad operation.
Meanwhile, Awan welcomed the forthcoming visit by US Senator John Kerry, saying it would help ease mistrust after an American raid killed Osama bin Laden. Kerry, who chairs the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, had earlier announced that he would travel to Pakistan early next week to put ties with Islamabad back on the right track. Firdous told AFP that the visit would help in efforts to minimise the trust deficit.
“There are concerns from our side and there are concerns from their side also. We should address these concerns,” the minister said. Kerry has been a champion of greater US engagement in Pakistan and argued that Washington and Islamabad needed to work through tensions fuelled by the May 2 raid. Asked whether he would press Pakistani leaders on whether officials there knew the al Qaeda chief was living a stone’s throw from an elite military academy for years, Kerry told reporters that he would discuss “all the relevant issues that are on the table, and there are a lot of them.”
Outraged US lawmakers have voiced suspicion that elements of Pakistan’s military intelligence services must have known his whereabouts, and are demanding that billions of dollars in American aid be suspended.
