Asif says Tehran meeting attendance not defence ministry's mandate
The defence minister's reply came after JUI-F chief Maulana Fazlur Rehman criticised his absence from a Tehran gathering of Makkah Defence Alliance officials.
Defence Minister Khawaja Asif said on Thursday that the question raised over his absence from a meeting in Tehran was "not the defence ministry's mandate", after Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam-Fazl (JUI-F) chief Maulana Fazlur Rehman criticised his non-participation, Dawn reported.
According to Dawn, the Tehran meeting brought together officials from member countries of the Makkah Defence Alliance. Those taking part included Saudi Defence Minister Prince Khalid bin Salman, Chief of Army Staff and Chief of Defence Forces Field Marshal Asim Munir and Turkish intelligence chief Ibrahim Kalin. Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi and Supreme National Security Council Secretary Mohsen Rezaei joined the gathering.
Dawn reported that Asif's response followed remarks by the JUI-F chief about his absence from the Tehran huddle. Separately, Daily Ausaf reported that Fazl turned one of Khawaja Asif's own widely quoted remarks back against the defence minister while speaking in the National Assembly.
The reports available did not set out the date of the Tehran meeting, the agenda of the discussions, the decisions taken there, or the full text of Asif's response beyond his contention that the matter fell outside his ministry's mandate. The exact wording Fazl used in the assembly was also not carried in the published account of his speech.
The Makkah Defence Alliance is the grouping whose member countries were represented at the Tehran talks, according to Dawn. Pakistan was represented at the meeting by Field Marshal Asim Munir in his capacity as Chief of Army Staff and Chief of Defence Forces, alongside the Saudi defence minister and the Turkish intelligence chief.
Khawaja Asif holds the federal defence portfolio, while Maulana Fazlur Rehman heads the JUI-F. The exchange over who should have attended the Tehran meeting places the division of responsibility between the defence ministry and the military's command structure back into public debate, though neither report indicated that the government had ordered a review of the arrangement.
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