In yet another blatant U-turn by the Pakistan Government, Information Minister Firdous Aashiq Awan has contradicted Defence Minister Ahmed Mukhtar's statements that Pakistan had asked the United States to vacate the Shamsi air base.
At a media interaction, Awan took the journalists by surprise by declaring that her government was unaware of any issue relating to Shamsi air base used by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to stage drone attacks against militants.
"No such matter ever came under consideration in the Defence Committee of the Cabinet (DCC) to which I am also a member," The Nation quoted the Information Minister, as saying while replying to a question in the Lahore Press Club's 'Meet the Press' programme.
Awan said she came to know about this issue only through media, adding that the DCC was the right forum to discuss such matters and the committee had not yet deliberated over it.
But ironically, at the same time, she was quick to add that the Inter Services Public Relations (ISPR) "will be in a better position" to give any statement on the issue - leaving the media to infer that the defence minister, instead of the taking instructions from the prime minister, directly consults the military on defence matters.
When asked about government's policy on drone attacks, she confined herself to saying that the parliament had already passed a unanimous resolution to stop drone attacks and a commission had also been formed to deliberate on such issues.
Defence Minister Mukhtar had told a group of journalists on Wednesday that Pakistan had asked Washington to leave Shamsi Airbase in Balochistan, which had been provided to the US after it launched a counter-terrorism operation in Afghanistan in 2001.
Earlier, the Financial Times had quoted Mukhtar as saying that Pakistan had already stopped US drone flights from the air base, but despite his statements, the situation at Shamsi remains unclear. ANI
