Civil, military leadership unanimity must for desired goals: Nisar

RAWALPINDI: Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan on Thursday said that good coordination and close cooperation between the civil and military leadership is essential to achieve desired objectives.

The minister was addressing senior military officers from the National Defence University (NDU) in Islamabad.

“Better civil-military relations in Pakistan are always an eyesore for our foes as well as those masquerading as our friends. The enemies of Pakistan always want to see cleavage in this relation for their ulterior ends. Better civil-military relations as of today are in the interest of Pakistan and delivering desired results," said the minister. He said enemies in the disguise of friends want to create misunderstandings between the civil and military leadership.

Discussing internal security policy of the country, Nisar said security today is a multi-pronged, multi-dimensional and multi-faceted issue. He said that today’s Pakistan is facing many challenges that require joint efforts by all organs of the state to overcome these issues. However, he said, it must also be realised that the security situation in the country is manifestly better than one prevailing in 2013.

“Today’s improved law and order situation is the result of our joint efforts and every institution of the state has contributed towards this improvement,” said the minister. However, he said, the enemy has been weakened, not eliminated completely. “There is now an unholy alliance between our internal and external enemies which is blatant in its substance,” he said.

The interaction that lasted for over two hours later turned into an interactive session wherein the participants expressed their views over the issues of national importance. Responding to an observation of one of the participants about the situation in Afghanistan and the reports of another military intervention by the US under the Trump government, the minister said if a massive military intervention in Afghanistan with over 150,000 men on ground could not bring peace in the war torn country then how can one expect that more of the same will bring about any improvement in the security situation of Afghanistan.