Govt to develop consensus on ‘Azm-e-Istehkam’: Khawaja Asif

LAHORE: Defence Minister Khawaja Asif said on Tuesday that the government would develop a consensus on the new anti-terrorism operation ‘Azm-e-Istehkam’ to eliminate militants from the country, assuring the opposition that its reservations over the matter would be addressed.
Legal and constitutional process would be adopted to allay the reservations of all political parties including Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-F (JUI-F) and Awami National Party (ANP), he said and added that the parties were taking such type of stand only to capture vote bank, but their stand should be for the state only, and not for votes, the official news agency reported.
Militants are being backed by the people abroad who want Pakistan to become a “no go area”, he said.
Addressing a press conference at Model Town, the defence minister said that operation Azm-e-Istehkam was a continuation of the National Action Plan, which had no political objectives. It is not correct to compare it with past operations, he said, adding that actions would be taken based on classified information.
Consensus among all institutions and political forces was essential for the success of the operation. If terrorism was not controlled, it could affect the entire country, he said.
The minister called on politicians, the media, judiciary and armed forces to support the operation.
He said that Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Chief Minister Ali Amin Gandapur did not express any reservations about Operation Azm-e-Istehkam during the apex committee’s meeting on Saturday. “In fact, he also said indirectly that we will support this action, which will be mainly implemented in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan,” Asif said.
The defence minister said the government did not want to achieve any “political objectives” through the operation. Rather, he said, it wanted to combat the surge in militancy in the country and eliminate it for good.
“Opposition parties and the government’s allies will be given a suitable amount of time to debate it and their questions and reservations will be answered,” he added.
Khawaja Asif said the operation would go through its process before it was enforced.
He said that it would be presented in the cabinet after which there would be a discussion on it in both the houses and a consensus on it would be developed.
He said that operations ‘Zarb-e-Azb’ and ‘Rah-e-Nijat’ were also aimed to eliminate militants.
However, the current situation was quite different as no area was under complete control of any terrorist organisation now. The last operation disturbed the populations to migrate but this time civil society would not be effected, he added.