ISLAMABAD: Defence Minister Khawaja Asif on Monday said that the government had decided to take all parties in confidence on Operation Azm-i-Istehkam.
The federal government on Saturday approved a reinvigorated and re-energised national counter-terrorism campaign, Operation Azm-i-Istehkam, that symbolised the national resolve to eradicate extremism and terrorism from the country.
The campaign was launched with the consensus of all stakeholders, including the provinces, Gilgit-Baltistan and Azad Jammu and Kashmir, during a meeting of the Central Apex Committee on the National Action Plan (NAP), chaired by Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif.
“Azm-i-Istehkam will integrate and synergise multiple lines of effort to combat the menaces of extremism and terrorism in a comprehensive and decisive manner,” the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) said in a press release.
However, in a parliament session marred by ruckus on Sunday, Defence Minister Khawaja Asif criticised the opposition for not supporting the newly announced counterterrorism operation as the latter demanded that Parliament be taken into confidence before any offensive against militancy was launched.
Speaking to the media outside Parliament House in Islamabad the same day, PTI MNA Gohar Khan had said, “It is our demand […] that if there is any operation — whether intelligence-based or full-fledged or in certain districts or villages or tehsils — it is necessary to take this Parliament into confidence.”
He had made the remarks while the National Assembly was in session, saying that the opposition wanted to speak on a point of order that the “military leadership, as has been done in the past, give an in-camera briefing and detail the situation”.
However, he alleged, that lawmakers from his party were denied the chance to speak and therefore staged a walkout in protest.
In an interview, Khawaja Asif said that the decision to conduct the operation was not finalised and that the matter would be brought up for debate in Parliament’s in-camera session.
Asif said that during the NAP meeting, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Chief Minister Ali Amin Gandapur participated in the discussion regarding the operation and the decision taken was with consensus.
“He presented the points that he had prepared and after that, a consensus was reached,” he said.
He said the outcome of the cabinet meeting on Saturday was not final as the decision would go “through the process”.
“It will go through the cabinet then it will be presented in the House and the House would be briefed,” he said.
“There is precedence for it […] operations have taken place during PTI’s government and Nawaz’s government,” he said, adding that he did not understand what problem the opposition had with the operation.
