Firdous Aashiq Awan Rejected Ahmed Mukhtar's Statement on Shamsi Airbase - A shameful U-Turn or lack of communication and coordination

U.S. not asked to leave Shamsi Airbase: Dr. Firdous

LAHORE, July 2 - Firdous Aashiq Awan, Federal Minister for Information, negated the defence Minister Ahmed Mukhtar’s statement in which he said that Pakistan has asked the United States to vacate the Shamsi Airbase.

The conflicting statement issued on Friday by Information Minister is another example of Government’s mischievous behaviour in the issues where American involvement is getting riskier than ever.

Dr Firdous, in a media briefing in Lahore Press Club, said, “No such matter ever came under consideration in the Defence Committee of the Cabinet (DCC) to which I am also a member.” The statement was a real shock for the journalists present there as every big newspaper had covered the Defence Minister’s statement just one day ago.

“I came to know about it only through media, but at the government level it had not been taken up as yet”, she further added; but she again left lot of doubts in the minds when she said at the same time that ISPR (Inter-Services Public Relatioon) “will be in a better position” to give any statement on the issue.

Defence Minister Ahmed Mukhtar told a group of journalists on Wednesday that Pakistan had asked Washington to leave Shamsi Airbase in Balochistan, which had been provided to the United States after it launched a counter-terrorism operation in Afghanistan in 2001.

Mukhtar told Reuters on Thursday that Islamabad had been pressuring the US to leave the base even before the May 2 commando raid in which US Navy Seal commandos killed Osama bin Laden. After the raid, Mukhtar said, “We told them again”.