Mansoor no ‘viceroy’ to demand military protocol, says Gilani

Playing down Mansoor Ijaz’s arrival to Pakistan, Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani on Sunday said he was no “viceroy” to demand being provided security by the military.
Talking to reporters after offering condolences to Amjad Kareem Randhawa, father of late Arfa Kareem, Gilani said it was the duty of the Interior Ministry to provide him security, but the protocol demanded was not allowed to any common man by the constitution. He said by giving such significance to the “memogate” and Mansoor Ijaz, “we are giving altogether a wrong image of Pakistan that the governments here are so feeble that they cannot withstand allegations made in a newspaper article”.
Gilani said the government would consider the matter of awarding Arfa Nishan-e-Imtiaz, the highest civil award. He said his government would cooperate with both parliamentary committee for national security and the judicial commission probing into the memo scandal. To a question regarding resignation of Hussain Haqqani, he said Haqqani was still innocent as no charge had been proven against him.
He said no memo was dangerous for the country, but the message being conveyed to the world about our institutional weaknesses was dangerous. To a question about Pak-US relations, the prime minister said building friendly relations with every country was the main objective of Pakistan’s foreign policy.
He denied that Aitzaz Ahsan had demanded excluding or including “somebody” from the cabinet before agreeing to be his attorney. He discouraged the criticism of Aitzaz, saying he was doing a duty of professional lawyer only. Gilani said only the Pakistan People’s Party would decide on including Babar Awan in cabinet or not. Glorifying his government’s “successes”, he said it was for the first time in the political history of Pakistan that there was no political prisoner. He said the PML-N was not at all a friendly opposition and it was the opposition’s duty to point out the mistakes of government, which in return was supposed to accept criticism open heartedly. To a question on Jamaat-e-Islami’s warning of staging a sit-in outside parliament if NATO supply line was restored, he said NATO supply was stopped in the larger interest of the country not on demand of the JI and whatever decision was taken in the future would also be for the sake of the country.