PM defends governor's rule in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa

The prime minister said governor's rule was imposed in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa because the situation left no alternative, and that a decision taken any later would have caused further damage, according to a report by UrduPoint on Saturday.

The outlet's headline quoted him saying the government had held negotiations and then waited for approval of a draft that had been agreed. The headline stopped at that point and the full report could not be retrieved. It did not name the parties to the negotiations, where or to whom the prime minister spoke, the date the decision was taken, or any notification issued for it.

No text of the prime minister's remarks was available and the statement could not be independently confirmed.

Under governor's rule, a province is run by its governor, who is appointed by the president on the advice of the prime minister, and the elected provincial government does not function.

The director general of Inter-Services Public Relations, Lieutenant General Ahmed Sharif Chaudhry, said in a separate interview with Reuters that no large-scale operation was planned in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and that intelligence-based operations against militancy would be stepped up, Express News reported.