Chief of Army Staff General Qamar Javed Bajwa called on the newly elected Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif on Tuesday.
This was their first meeting after Shehbaz Sharif was elected to the office after the ouster of previous prime minister Imran Khan.
In a statement, the Prime Minister’s Office said that the two officials discussed professional matters related to national security during the meeting. The pair also discussed the internal and external developments.
Earlier, the army chief, according to the Director-General Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) Major General Babar Iftikhar, could not attend the oath-taking ceremony of the premier on April 11 as he was sick.
Speaking at a presser on April 14, 2022, the DG ISPR said that General Bajwa skipped out on the oath-taking ceremony simply because he was unwell and there was no other reason behind his absence.
The meeting came amid an increase in attacks on security forces along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border, resulting in the martyrdom of soldiers over the weeks.
In a strongly worded statement, Pakistan had told the Afghan Taliban to put an end to cross-border attacks emanating from Afghan soil.
Similarly, the army is facing a smear campaign on the social media following the removal of the PTI government. The army chief had recently said that efforts to create a “wedge between army and people won’t be tolerated”.
“The hostile forces are trying this for a long time but they won’t succeed InshAllah,” the ISPR quoted General Bajwa as saying. Separately, Shehbaz Sharif called upon the international community to take notice of the recent incidents of Islamophobia that took place in Sweden and the Netherlands.
“The people of Pakistan and Muslims around the world are deeply hurt by the recent incidents of Islamophobia in Sweden and the Netherlands,” he said in a tweet. He said the international community must condemn these incidents and stressed taking steps to check such “abhorrent behavior”. He also emphasized standing united against Islamophobia.
