Khattak rules out PTI’s rift with army

NOWSHERA: Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) provincial president Pervez Khattak on Monday said his party had no issue with the army and that he was still in touch with the military leadership.

Speaking to the media here, he said there was no rift between the PTI and the army. “I am still in contact with the army,” he claimed. Pervez Khattak, who has served as federal defence minister and KP chief minister in the past, said only the people had the power to vote out PTI Chairman Imran Khan and nobody else could make him stay away from politics.

Commenting on the verdict of the Election Commission of Pakistan in the foreign funding case of his party, he said the ‘imported government’ and the election body were hand-in-glove and the outcome was nothing more than a ‘drama’. The PTI leader said that as per the law, if a party received prohibited funding, it could be confiscated and nobody could be punished for it.

“Nobody can harm Imran Khan. Allah will help him. We have nothing to worry about. The coalition government will stand exposed,” he claimed. He said his party had no issue with Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz supreme leader Nawaz Sharif whether he went to jail or got bail from courts. “However, we want a one-on-one contest between Imran Khan and Nawaz Sharif,” he remarked.

Striking a reconciliatory tone, he said if the ‘imported’ rulers were interested in early polls, they should dissolve the national, Sindh and Balochistan assemblies while the PTI would dissolve the Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa assemblies. “We are ready to hold talks with the government on this one-point agenda,” he added.

Defending the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government, he said it received the vehicles from the US to serve the people. “We cannot refuse the assistance being given to the benefit of the people,” he argued.

He said Imran Khan had said ‘absolutely not’ to the US as his government did not want to provide airbases to its forces to conduct airstrikes in Afghanistan. Pervez Khattak said the National Assembly speaker should have accepted the resignations of all the PTI lawmakers.

He said Imran Khan was contesting election from nine constituencies to show his popularity and defeat his rivals singlehandedly. The PTI leader asserted that his party lawmakers, who had submitted resignations, were neither receiving sal aries nor enjoying any other perks and privileges.

He said the coalition partners had been trapped as they could neither quit the government nor run it properly. Pervez Khattak believed that the government lacked the ability to steer the country out of the prevailing crises and revive the economy.