Islamabad: Former prime minister Shaukat Aziz said Wednesday that they were in the exit mode right before the emergency was imposed.
“I had no intention of continuing my role in the government. I had decided that whoever the party nominates after me could become the next prime minister after winning the elections,” the former prime minister said during an interview with a private news channel.
“I used to meet the chief justice of Pakistan (CJP) Iftikhar Chaudhry frequently. We had no animosity towards the judiciary,” he said.
He sidestepped a question regarding his role in imposing the emergency and said that he didn’t remember what he had said at the time.
UNITED STATES AND SAUDI ARABIA SAVED NAWAZ SHARIF: Shaukat Aziz said that Saudi Arabia and the US were together trying to make sure that Nawaz Sharif’s life was not in any danger.
He said that in order to protect his life and benefit the development work in Pakistan, the two countries made sure that he left. “Bill Clinton came to Pakistan for a humanitarian purpose which was to guarantee the safety of Nawaz Sharif,” he said. On top of that, he added, was the pressure from Saudi Arabia.
“I was also of the view, when I was asked, that Sharif’s life shouldn’t be put in any danger,” he added.
On the drone strikes, he said: “When these drones used to operate from our bases we knew about that, however, we didn’t know where they were going, why they were going there and who the intended target was.”
On the Lal Masjid operation, he said that everyone knows the facts of the incident, and what the prevailing circumstances were when it was carried out. All of it is documented in the Lal Masjid Commission report which is very accurate as the investigation had been conducted in a proper manner.
Talking about Musharraf, he said that according to his analysis Musharraf wanted to form a government with Benazir Bhutto where he would be the president and she would be the prime minister.
‘IT WAS A MODEL ERA’:: He said that he had invited the then Lebanese prime minister Rafiq Hariri to invest in Pakistan, as he had a huge business spread in many parts of the world. “Musharraf agreed with my assessment and gave me the permission to invite him to Pakistan.”
“It was a model era for Pakistan and wherever I travelled people used to echo these sentiments,” he said about his time in office.
On Pakistan’s involvement in the war against terror he said it was the right decision at that time.
“The process of reforms should be a continuous process. Crises keep coming in the economy and it has to be managed properly on a yearly basis. It was in our time when the foreign exchange reserves were at the highest and we paid back a lot of loans,” he said but was reminded by the host of the collapse of the economy immediately following his departure.http://www.pakistantoday.com.pk/2016/06/09/national/us-and-saudi-arabia-rescued-nawaz-from-musharraf-says-former-pm-aziz/
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