While expressing ‘serious concern’ over a news leak about rift between civilian and military leaderships over how to tackle militancy, the Pakistan army described it as a ‘breach of national security’ and held Nawaz Sharif’s government responsible for the same.
Chief of Army Staff (COAS) General Raheel Sharif yesterday presided over the meeting of Corps Commanders' Conference which was held at the General Headquarters (GHO) in Rawalpindi.
“Participants expressed their serious concern over feeding of false and fabricated story of an important security meeting held at the Prime Minister's House and viewed it as breach of national security,” according a statement by the Army.
The statement implied that since the ‘feeding of false report’ occurred from a top-level closed-door meeting chaired by PM Nawaz Sharif himself, his government was responsible for the leak.
Pakistan's leading newspaper Dawn had last week reported that there was a verbal clash between the civilian government and the military establishment over the military's covert support to militants like the Haqqani network, the LeT and Taliban.
Following the report, journalist Cyril Almeida was put on Exit Control List (ECL), barring him from leaving Pakistan and sparking a massive outrage from journalist associations.
The newspaper has rejected allegations of "vested interest and false reporting". It came out with a scathing editorial, saying Almeida's story on the verbal clash between government and military was "duly verified and correct piece of reporting."
The Prime Minister's Office has repeatedly denied any rift between the two establishments since the story came out on October 6.
The army said the participants in today's meeting held a comprehensive review of internal and external security situation with particular focus on the environment at the Line of Control (LoC) and operational preparedness of the army.
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