ISLAMABAD
\nPTI Chairman Imran Khan said Wednesday that the parties in the coalition government were \u201cafraid\u201d he would appoint Lieutenant General Faiz Hameed as the next chief of army staff.
\n\u201cThey were afraid that I wanted to appoint Lt Gen Faiz. They feared that if that would have happened then it would shatter their future,\u201d the PTI chairman said while hitting out at the government during a seminar on \u201cRegime Change Conspiracy and Pakistan\u2019s Destabilization\u201d.
\nThe ousted prime minister said the incumbent rulers are \u201cafraid of the army and the Inter-Services Intelligence\u201d as they know that their \u201ccorruption\u201d will be caught at some point.
\n\u201cImran Khan does not want to save his corruption, he does not want to appoint his army chief,\u201d said the PTI leader.
\nKhan said that the incumbent rulers claim that he wanted to appoint an army chief of his choice.
\n\u201cI never thought of appointing someone as army chief. I have never taken a decision that is not based on merit.\u201d
\nThe PTI chairman berated the incumbent rulers for allegedly \u201cmurdering the institutions\u201d and appointing \u201ctheir people\u201d to every institution.
\n\u2018Regime change conspiracy\u2019
\nMoving on to the \u201cregime change conspiracy\u201d, Khan said that the United States does not change regimes for a country\u2019s betterment. It only does that for its interests, not ours, he added.
\nHe said that in the past, the United States used Pakistan for the \u201cwar on terror\u201d, resulting in heavy casualties to Islamabad, while its air bases were also used for drone attacks.
\n\u201cOur interest is that our soil is not used against Afghanistan or any other country. America wanted us to accept India\u2019s demands. It wanted us to forget Kashmir and accept Israel,\u201d he said.
\nKhan said US Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asia Donald Lu \u201carrogantly threatened\u201d Pakistan, so can a \u201csovereign nation\u201d accept such threats.
\nThe PTI chairman said he was aware of the \u201cconspiracy\u201d to oust his government. \u201cPeople ask me if I knew about it, then why didn\u2019t I do anything? Well, I never imagined that they would appoint Shehbaz Sharif as the prime minister.\u201d
\nKhan, addressing the \u201cneutrals\u201d, said Shehbaz has been booked in corruption cases worth Rs16 billion.
\nThe PTI chairman said the measures being taken today will lead the country toward destruction as a \u201ccircus\u201d is going on in Punjab and the judiciary now had immense responsibility.
\n\u2018Freedom from NAB\u2019
\nTalking to the participants of the seminar, former finance minister Shaukat Tarin said the government was formed not for providing relief to the people, but to get the rulers \u201cfreedom from NAB (National Accountability Bureau).\u201d
\nIn a scathing attack on the government, Tarin said it is so \u201cincompetent\u201d that later this month, a mini-budget is expected \u2014 after it reaches an agreement with the International Monetary Fund.
\nOn Tuesday night, Pakistan and the IMF evolved a broader agreement on the budget 2022-23 to revise upward the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) target and slash down the expenditures to achieve a revenue surplus in the next fiscal year.
\nThey are expected to reach an agreement soon.
\nThe former finance minister said there are rumours of a further Rs50 per litre hike in the price of petrol, which will exacerbate the burden on the masses \u2014 who are already getting the commodity Rs234.
\n\u2018Regime change is still incomplete\u2019
\nIn his address to the seminar, PTI Senior Vice President Fawad Chaudhry said Energy Minister Khurram Dastagir has admitted in a television programme that the coalition government came into power to end their cases.
\nLast week, during an interview with a private channel, Dastagir had admitted that the coalition government leaders knew that there would be disqualifications on a massive level by the end of this year if things continued in line with Khan\u2019s plans.
\n\u2018America\u2019s agenda\u2019
\nFor her part, senior PTI leader Shireen Mazari said a \u201cconspiracy\u201d was hatched against the Khan-led government, leading to its ouster two months back.
\n\u201cFirst there was a conspiracy and then they [foreign powers] interfered,\u201d she said, slamming the government for \u201cproposing\u201d talks and friendship with New Delhi.
\nThe former human rights said after Khan\u2019s \u201crefusal\u201d to give air bases to the United States, America \u201cintensified\u201d its \u201cconspiracy\u201d against the PTI chairman.
\n\u201cThe Kashmiris are dying and our foreign minister [Bilawal Bhutto] is proposing to promote trade with India. Trade with India is America\u2019s agenda,\u201d the PTI leader added.
\nMazari was referring to Bilawal\u2019s address at the Institute of Strategic Studies Islamabad (ISSI). The Foreign Office had last week stated that the statements were being \u201cinterpreted out of context and portrayed incorrectly.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
ISLAMABAD PTI Chairman Imran Khan said Wednesday that the parties in the coalition government were \u201cafraid\u201d he would appoint Lieutenant General Faiz Hameed as the next chief of army staff. \u201cThey were afraid that I wanted to appoint Lt Gen Faiz. They feared that if that would have happened then it would shatter their future,\u201d […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":267545,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[2],"tags":[2984,2833,8834],"class_list":{"0":"post-267517","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-top-news","8":"tag-army-chief","9":"tag-imran-khan","10":"tag-lt-gen-faiz-hameed"},"yoast_head":"\n