PTI against former Pak army chief leading Saudi-led military alliance

The Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) is not in favour of the government's decision to allow former army chief General (Retd.) Raheel Sharif to assume the command of a yet-to-be-formed Saudi-led 39-nation military alliance of Muslim states and has decided to raise the issue in the Parliament.

"We strongly oppose this decision and will soon raise the issue in the Parliament," Dawn quoted PTI spokesman Fawwad Chaudhry as saying.

He said three PTI parliamentarians namely Mehmood Qureshi, Shireen Mazari and Shafqat Mehmood have been asked by party chairman Imran Khan to prepare a strategy under which a privilege motion and a calling attention notice would be moved in the National Assembly so that discussions on the issue takes place.

The PTI's move comes after the Pakistan Government gave its approval to General (Retd.) Sharif to lead a 39-nation alliance of Muslim states led by Saudi Arabia by providing him with a No-Objection Certificate (NOC).

The PTI spokesman said the decision to issue the NOC to General (Retd.) Sharif is contrary to the decision made by all parliamentary parties to remain neutral in the Middle East crisis.

"Even if the government had decided to issue the NOC to the former army chief, it should have come again to the parliament to give reasons why it wanted to do so," he said.

Chaudhry said the appointment of General (Retd.) Sharif would send a negative message that the Pakistan was against Iran as the 39-nation military alliance of Muslim states was apparently being formed against Tehran.

He further said that the decision would intensify sense of insecurity prevailing amongst the Shia communities in Pakistan as they are already been targeted in the country.