All past military appointments on merit, save one or two: Asif

Defence Minister Khawaja Asif on Wednesday stated that “barring one or two exceptions”, all prior appointments within the armed forces had been made on merit.

Speaking at a joint news convention with Finance Minister Miftah Ismail, he said Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif could take the decision about the appointment of next navy leader “in the ambit of the General Headquarters (GHQ)” round 29th of November.He denied that the ruling coalition – the Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM) – had taken a selection on giving extension to incumbent Chief of Army Staff (COAS) General Qamar Javed Bajwa.

The ministers levelled a slew of corruption costs against former top minister Imran Khan.

They additionally went on to accuse Imran’s spouse, their confidants, Farah Gogi and Syed Zulfikar Bukhari and the leader ministers of Punjab and Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (K-P), of corruption.

The ministers’ presser came after the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) chairman tried to make the appointment of the subsequent army leader arguable, inviting a sturdy reaction from the military itself.

The guidelines for the heads of the 3 army divisions – navy, navy and air pressure – have been despatched to the high minister, who made the decision after consultations with others, the defence minister stated.

He stated that there has been no choice on Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) leader Hamza Shehbaz turning into the leader minister of Punjab again, or the most useful’s visit to London.In the past, Khawaj Asif stated, the declaration of the next military leader changed into usually made over the past 24-forty eight hours, adding that there was no cause to deviate from the system this time around.

He said that Imran had given a “new meaning” to his comments in Tuesday’s rally in Peshawar. “This is accomplished as part of a well-taken into consideration method which you first assault and make the institutions arguable and, upon seeing the response, say, ‘I talked about merit’.”

Imran precipitated the talk while he accused Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) Co-Chairman Asif Zardari and Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) Quaid Nawaz Sharif of creating all-out efforts to deliver their “preferred” as the next military chief after the retirement of Gen Bajwa in November.

Subsequently, in a bid to make clear his remarks, the PTI chief claimed in Peshawar that his opponents have been distorting his statements to pit him in opposition to the military and the judiciary.

Asif said that the state of affairs changed into such for the PTI that even Imran’s confidants both remained silent on the problem or averted it altogether while requested about their opinion on their leader’s remarks.

“The president additionally disassociated himself from what Imran Khan had stated,” he stated, adding that the senior PTI management, consisting of Shah Mahmood Qureshi, became distancing themselves from Imran’s feedback.

He called on the PTI leader to tell whilst the appointments have been now not made on advantage, hard him to take names. In the final 3 years, he delivered, the remaining time, the choice approximately the army leader become taken by Imran Khan. At that time, he stated, Imran had praised General Bajwa.The defence minister stated that once Imran became in electricity, his self assurance inside the military leader became so high that he did now not chair several essential political conferences or security briefings himself and left them to General Bajwa to preside over.

Even if Imran’s factor about benefit became considered, he puzzled, whether or not the appointments to the pinnacle slots of Punjab and K-P had been made on merit or now not. He then went on to accuse the former authorities of corruption, thinking whether benefit changed into taken into consideration in those topics as properly.

Asif alleged that Imran did not look at numerous scandals throughout his tenure together with the dearth of sugar, drug treatments and wheat. He claimed that the human beings inside the PTI had been abandoning their leader as no person changed into defending him over his recent remarks.