Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Chairman Imran Khan said that he is a supporter of Pakistan, and not a Taliban sympathiser. He held Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif responsible for Bannu bomb attack.
The PTI chief was addressing a rally in Haripur as part of electioneering for by-election on PK-50 Haripur-II.
Imran Khan said that in May last year he had asked Nawaz Sharif for giving priority to peace but the premier remained busy in foreign tours.
Khan said he is a Pakistani and speaks for the nation and not a spokesman or supporter of Taliban as blamed by some political rival.
He strongly condemned the TTP for its attack against a convoy of soldiers in Bannu that killed at least 23 security personnel and wounded 60 others.
The PTI chief also expressed shock at the use of a private vehicle for transporting the soldiers without proper security checks. He said such a move also exposed the movement of troops in advance – in itself a breach of security.
Imran Khan stated that such terror attacks by TTP along with the federal government’s continuing inability to formulate a comprehensive counter terror policy, has made it difficult to actually commence a formal dialogue and give peace a chance. In the absence of political ownership and a political dimension of counter terrorism involving negotiation and dialogue backed by state power, even Operations are not yielding success. This is reflected in the daily killings going on unabated in Karachi while the Rangers’ Operation is ongoing.
Khan demanded that the government must either make clear its policy for fully implementing the APC mandate or call an APC to develop a new national consensus. Khan said this was the time to finally reject such conditionalities and the aid and extricate ourselves from the US so-called “war on terror”.
