ISLAMABAD: Pakistan Tehrik-i-Insaf (PTI) chairman Imran Khan on Thursday lambasted the government as a drone attack claimed six lives in the Hangu district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa earlier today.
Addressing a press conference in the federal capital, the PTI chief said the US had launched an attack on peace in Pakistan. In the same vein, Khan criticised Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, saying that despite his assurances, the latter had failed to resolve the issue of drone attacks in his recent meeting with US President Barack Obama.
He called out to the PML-N-led government at the centre, saying its “honey-moon period” was over, adding that while the country was in dire straits, the premier remained busy with foreign trips.
Khan announced that his party would hold a historic protest in Peshawar on Nov 23 against the war that the US has declared on Pakistan’s peace and on the peace talks that the country has been attempting to start with militants. He added that he has invited all coalition partners of the PTI to Saturday’s protest.
The lives of people of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa are at stake, the PTI chief said, adding that his party would issue the names and photographs of the deceased killed in Thursday’s drone attack in Hangu.
He further said that despite Wednesday’s statement from Sartaj Aziz, the premier’s adviser on National Security and Foreign Affairs, that US would not carry out any drone strikes inside Pakistan during its talks with the Taliban, the attacks were still happening and therefore diminishing the already bleak chances of arriving at a peaceful resolution with the militants.
Speaking on last week’s violence in Rawalpindi on Ashura day, Khan said the incident was “a conspiracy against Pakistan” but at the same blamed “administrative negligence” for it.
