Cypher issue: President Dr Arif Alvi gives important message to Imran Khan, SC

ISLAMABAD: President Dr Arif Alvi has given an important message to Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) chief and former premier Imran Khan and the Supreme Court (SC) regarding the cypher issue to which he used the term ‘some suspicions’ but ‘not sure of any foreign conspiracy’.

President Dr Arif Alvi – who is also a central leader of PTI – gave an important interview to the senior journalist and anchorperson Asma Shirazi on Aaj News at a time when  PTI chief Imran Khan and the federal government are ready for another face-off after the announcement of Islamabad long march.

“I am not convinced on the fact that ‘cypher’ is a ‘conspiracy’, I have my doubts, so I sent a request to Supreme Court to record circumstantial evidence. The use of language in ‘cypher’ was not good so Pakistan sent demarche” President Arif Alvi.#FaislaAapKaWithPresident pic.twitter.com/VxPZWT5D5b

— Asma Shirazi (@asmashirazi) October 10, 2022

While talking to Aaj News, the president said that he is “not convinced” that a foreign conspiracy was hatched to remove PTI Chief Imran Khan from power on the basis of cypher, However, a probe should be conducted to address the suspicions into the issue.

President Alvi said he was impartial as the president of the country and his affiliation with the PTI was a thing of the past. “The party is my past. It is a very good past,” he said.

Acting as mediator

Dr Alvi has reportedly tried to act as a mediator between the PMLN-led government and Imran Khan, who is preparing to march on Islamabad with his supporters.

Dr Alvi said that there are so many problems in the country that “a maverick” alone could not solve them. Therefore it is important that the political gulf is bridged, he said. He said that a president could make efforts to bridge that gulf.

Cypher issue

However, Dr Alvi said that he was not convinced about the claims that the United States hatched a conspiracy to dislodge Khan, though he demanded a probe.

“I sent that letter to the chief justice. I am convinced that there must be probe on it. I am not convinced on the fact that a conspiracy was hatched. But I have my doubts [and] there must be a probe,” said Dr Alvi.

The president said that he had already cautioned that the probe was unlikely to unearth a “smoking gun”.

“You don’t find a smoking gun in such things,” he said and referred to several past episodes of Pakistan’s political history, including the murder of Liaquat Ali Khan, the first prime minister of the country.

“Ayub Khan wrote in his book, Friends Not Masters, that we need friends not masters. Bhutto sahib penned Myth of Independence. He waved a piece of paper in Rawalpindi when he was removed. Then Ziaul Haq’s plane crashed. There were no investigations. There was the Ojri Camp disaster and Abbottabad conspiracy. There was Memogate conspiracy. Nobody knew anything,” the president said.

“So I requested the Supreme Court to take into account the circumstantial evidence,” he added.

COAS appointment

President Alvi called for a “broader consultation” on the appointment of the next chief of army staff (COAS) in November when the current COAS General Qamar Javed Bajwa retires.

On a question about Imran Khan’s refusal to hold talks with the government and a similar line taken by the ruling coalition, Dr Alvi said that Imran Khan became “extremely frustrated” when his government was removed and especially in the manner it was removed.

“After becoming frustrated, he decided that he would not sit” in the National Assembly, he said.

Asked if Imran Khan’s move to quit the National Assembly was the right decision, Dr Alvi said, “If I were consulted, I might have offered different advice.”

In response to a question about Imran’s march and the military’s role, the president said that the military has a constitutional role to play.

The president said that he would approve the appointment of the next COAS in line with the procedure laid out in the constitution.

President Alvi said that consultation must be held on this key appointment, but he desired that a summary of the appointment is sent to him after the consultation has been completed.

Without naming PMLN or its chief, Dr Alvi said that he had read in the newspapers that PMLN was holding a consultation in London with Nawaz Sharif.

There must be a broader consultation so that a consensus could be developed, said the president.

Dr Avli said that in the past, too, the opposition was consulted on the appointment of the COAS. A similar discussion with the then-opposition was held when Imran Khan extended the three-year term of General Bajwa in 2019, the president said.

The law must have been introduced in the Parliament after closure was reached during a consultation, the president said.