News
Sunday, May 08, 2011
Zardari, Gilani urged to resign after US operation
* Nisar says US operation tramples on our honour and president, PM must give explanation
* Qureshi holds Zardari, Gilnai responsible
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s elected leaders on Saturday came under mounting pressure to resign in the wake of a US commando operation that killed Osama Bin Laden in Abbottabad.
Navy SEALs in three helicopters raided a three-storey house in Abbottabad last Sunday night, killing Bin Laden and flying off with his body, which was later buried at sea.
As the covert operation piled embarrassment on Pakistan’s civil and military leadership, the leader of the parliamentary opposition demanded that President Asif Ali Zardari and Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani resign.
“The operation tramples on our honour and dignity, and the president and prime minister must either give an explanation or resign,” Chaudhry Nisar Ali told reporters.
“The government is keeping silent and there appears to be nobody to respond to propaganda against Pakistan,” he added, saying that people in the country were feeling “insecure” after the covert US mission. “Those who are responsible must admit and quit,” said Nisar.
He also criticised the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), saying that Pakistani institutions had “deviated from their real role”. Opposition leader Imran Khan and former foreign minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi have also joined the chorus for Zardari and Gilani to resign.
“This is a great violation of our sovereignty, but it is for the president and prime minister to resign and no one else,” Qureshi said at a press conference.
Some Pakistanis have focused their anger on the army and intelligence chiefs.
But, Qureshi said President Zardari and Prime Minister Gilani are the ones who should be held responsible.
Qureshi said parliament should conduct an inquiry into the raid in Abbottabad. He claimed he was forced to resign because of his comments on the case of Raymond Davis, a CIA contractor who shot dead two Pakistanis in January in Lahore.
President Zardari, Prime Minister Gilani and Chief of Army Staff General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani held talks on Saturday to discuss the present situation in its totality.
According to Pakistan’s official account of events surrounding the raid, Kayani was briefed after the operation by US military chief Mike Mullen several hours before US President Barack Obama telephoned Zardari. The Pakistani military on Saturday denied reports that ISI chief Lt Gen Ahmed Shuja Pasha planned to resign in the wake of the US raid in Abbottabad.
Residents of Chak Shah Muhammad, a small village close to Abbottabad, denied reports Saturday that Bin Laden had lived there for two and a half years with his family before moving to Abbottabad.
“I don’t think the kind of people you and the intelligence agencies are looking for are here or have ever lived here,” said Muhammed Shazad Awan, a former army soldier who has driven a public minibus in the area for the last 12 years. agencies
Courtesy www.dailytimes.com.pk