Imran says 'no grudge' against Nawaz Sharif

Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan has said that he holds no grudge against Nawaz Sharif and that the ailing former premier's health is more important than politics.

Khan's remark, on Friday, came a day after PML-N chief Shehbaz Sharif warned that he would hold the former responsible in case anything happened to his brother as his administration was "dilly-dallying on the removal of Nawaz's name from the no-fly list", Express Tribune reported.

Presiding over a meeting of the PTI core committee, the prime minister said that his government had facilitated Sharif at every forum on humanitarian grounds and had also come up with a legal option to strike his name off the Exit Control List (ECL).

He also said that the government had no issues if the Sharif family opted to approach the court instead of furnishing an indemnity bond for the removal of the former prime minister's name from the ECL.

Pakistan's Interior Ministry on Wednesday had decided to grant Sharif a "one-time" permission to travel abroad for medical treatment for four weeks provided that he submits an indemnity bond of Rs7 billion. The decision, however, was snubbed by the PML-N and challenged in the Lahore High Court on Friday.

On the same day, the High Court admitted a plea seeking the removal of Sharif's name from the no-fly list unconditionally.

Khan, however, regretted that the Sharif family was "playing politics" on the 69-year-old politician's health. He said that Sharif's health was deteriorating and his family's first priority should be to take him abroad for treatment instead of wrangling over the issue of the indemnity bond.

Sharif was expected to leave Pakistan on Sunday. However, his ticket was cancelled as the authorities did not remove his name from the ECL list.