Prime Minister Imran Khan on Friday reiterated his government’s firm resolve to counter terrorists getting external support with full force and vowed to thwart their designs to create chaos in the country.
In his initial remarks at the meeting of the federal cabinet, he said the government had some indications and was expecting a reaction following his recent successful visit to China, in which the two countries inked several important agreements.
Imran Khan said unprecedented progress was made to further strengthen bilateral ties between Pakistan and China and said a number of important agreements were inked, details of which however cannot be divulged owing to their sensitive nature.
He said certain powers who wish to weaken Pakistan and destabilize the country were obviously not pleased with this development and had their concerns.
He said Pakistan’s efforts to strengthen the national economy were not being seen positively by certain powers and efforts were being made to create instability.
He pointed that the bomb blast at Orakzai was also part of this plan and said the explosion was due to a planted device and was not a suicide attempt.
Prime Minister Imran Khan particularly lauded the security personnel who stopped the terrorists and paid the ultimate sacrifice.
He said no Chinese official was hurt owing to the swift response by those on duty and appreciated sending of timely reinforcements.
He said no other country had achieved so much success against terrorism and said Pakistan and had given numerous sacrifices to counter terrorism.
During the meeting, the cabinet gave its go-ahead to the appointment of Arif Usmani as new CEO and President of the National Bank of Pakistan. The post of NBP president was lying vacant after the government suspended former president Saeed Ahmad on a request by the National Accountability Bureau over his alleged involvement in a money laundering case.
The federal cabinet also endorsed the proposal to develop the Kartarpur corridor to facilitate the Sikh community of India. Friday session also featured discussion on the chairmanship of Export Processing Zones Authority (EPZA) and approval of a policy on use of smuggled mobile phones.
Speaking to the media after the meeting, Information Minister Fawad Chaudhry announced that the government would block all the smuggled cellphones in the country after December 31.
Chaudhry said that the government will introduce Device Identification, Registration and Blocking System (DIRBS), which will block stolen and smuggled cell phones, rendering them useless. The system will ensure that stolen and blocked phones, and phones with duplicate or non-standard identifiers are blocked. Chaudhry said this was part of a plan to promote local cell phone industry. Earlier, upon the directions of Senate Standing Committee on information technology (IT), Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) had on October 18 agreed to extend the deadline for blocking unregistered mobile phones by two months.
Published in Daily Times, November 24th 2018.
