— Minister reveals Putin offered to provide wheat to tackle food shortage amid floods
ISLAMABAD: Defence Minister Khawaja Asif has warned former prime minister Imran Khan against trying to make the appointment of the new army chief controversial as it “emboldened India”.
Addressing a press conference here on Saturday, he said that Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif shall install Gen. Qamar Javed Bajwa’s successor in accordance with the relevant provisions of the Constitution.
Shelving Khan’s demand of deferring the appointment of the new army chief till the general elections, the defence minister said he will not let Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) chair put the country at stake and appease New Delhi.
“The appointment will be made in November as per schedule,” he said.
He also remarked that Khan is rewarding India by promoting political uncertainty in the country.
Earlier in the press conference, Asif termed the prime minister’s visit to Samarkand “extremely successful”.
He said Sharif met with the heads of 10 countries during the two-day visit who promised to extend support to the flood-stricken people of Pakistan.
The premier represented Pakistan during the two-day annual Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit in Uzbekistan on September 15-16.
Asif said the meetings with Chinese, Russian, Iranian, and Turkish heads of state were the highlight of the prime minister’s visit. “All these countries promised assistance to Pakistan,” he maintained.
Besides gas, Russia had also offered to provide wheat to Pakistan in the wake of catastrophic floods and keeping in view the possibility of food shortages that may occur in the aftermath of the deluge, he revealed.
“Russia has said that it can provide us wheat because in the coming days as we may have shortages […],” he said.
Putin has also said that pipeline gas supplies to Pakistan were possible and part of the infrastructure was already in place, Russian state-owned news agency RIA reported.
The long-delayed gas pipeline vital to the country’s economy — the Pakistan Stream gas project, also known as the North-South gas pipeline — is to be built in collaboration with Russian companies.
The two countries agreed in 2015 to build a 1,100 km (683 mile)-long pipeline to deliver imported liquefied natural gas (LNG) from Karachi on the Arabian Sea coast to power plants in Punjab.
The pipeline’s designed annual capacity stands at 12.4 billion cubic metres (bcm), with the possibility to be increased to 16 bcm.
The project, due to be launched in 2020, was delayed after Russia had to replace the initial participant, which was hit by Western sanctions.
Meanwhile, Sharif will visit China at the invitation of President Xi Jinping in November, Asif announced separately.
In a tweet, Asif said Sharif had held “very successful” talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Jinping. “Both leaders have officially invited Shehbaz Sharif to visit their countries,” he said, adding that both invites had been accepted.
“[The prime minister] will visit China in November,” he said, but did not give any further details on when the Russian visit might occur.
