Gen Faiz insisted on becoming Faizabad deal guarantor: Ahsan

KARACHI: Senior Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz leader and former interior minister Ahsan Iqbal has said that Gen Faiz Hameed had become a signatory at his own insistence to the agreement signed with the Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP) to end the Faizabad protest sit-in of 2017.

Appearing on Geo News programme ‘Capital Talk’ hosted by Hamid Mir on Monday, Iqbal said both he and then Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi were not in favour of Gen Faiz Hameed becoming a signatory to that agreement. However, he said, Gen Faiz insisted that the protesting TLP wouldn’t accept the accord if he didn’t become part of it as guarantor.

The former interior minister said he had been in contact with PM Abbasi when the accord was being finalised. “When I read out the contents of the agreement to the prime minister, he also suggested that it would be better that General Sahib didn’t sign it,” said Iqbal.

“I also conveyed to General Sahib that it wouldn’t be good for him and his institution to sign the agreement given its political nature.” Iqbal said the Gen Faiz had told him that the other party (the TLP) would not honour the agreement unless he became a guarantor of the accord.