ISLAMABAD: The Pakistani Foreign Office on Sunday refuted reports about the deployment of Chinese security forces in Pakistan to ensure security of Chinese nationals working in the country, describing them as “totally false.”
Media reports, following talks between Pakistan and China on the security of Chinese nationals this week, suggested that China has for the first time deployed its own security personnel in Pakistan to protect its projects and citizens amid rising terror attacks.
Chinese nationals have been in the crosshairs of separatist militants who believe Beijing is helping Pakistan exploit minerals in the underdeveloped southwestern province of Balochistan, where China has a strategic port and mining interests.
“I completely deny this. No Chinese forces are being deployed in Pakistan,” Foreign Office spokesperson Shafqat Ali Khan told Arab News. “This is totally false and there is no credibility to these reports.”
Thousands of Chinese nationals are working in Pakistan, primarily on roads, infrastructure and development projects associated with the $65 billion China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), a part of China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).
“Discussions on the security of Chinese nationals are an ongoing process,” Khan said. “This is our commitment to ensure the security of Chinese personnel in Pakistan and these dialogues between the two countries are part of that arrangement.”
Beijing has been pushing Pakistan to allow its own security staff to provide protection to thousands of Chinese citizens working there, frustrated by a string of attacks on its citizens.
The push came after a bombing at the Karachi airport last October killed two Chinese engineers who were returning there to work at a power plant. In March 2024, five Chinese workers were killed in a suicide bombing in northwest Pakistan.
In October, the Pakistani government approved an additional Rs45 billion ($160 million) budget for the armed forces, primarily to enhance their capacity to protect Chinese commercial interests in Pakistan.
This week, Pakistan’s envoy to Beijing, Ambassador Khalil Hashmi, told reporters that discussions between the two countries on security measures to protect Chinese nationals working in Pakistan are still a “work in progress.”
“It’s a complex security environment,” he said. “We have the capability to resolve, to counter and combat and defeat these terrorist forces.”
Islamabad denies reports of China deploying its forces in Pakistan to protect its nationals
https://arab.news/vzn3s
Islamabad denies reports of China deploying its forces in Pakistan to protect its nationals
- Chinese nationals have been in the crosshairs of separatist militants who believe Beijing is helping Pakistan exploit minerals in Balochistan
- Pakistani officials say there is no credibility to these reports and the security of Chinese nationals in Pakistan is still a ‘work in progress’
Imran Khan not a ‘national security threat,’ ex-PM’s party responds to Pakistan military
- Pakistan’s military spokesperson on Friday described Khan’s anti-army narrative as a “national security threat”
- PTI Chairman Gohar Ali Khan says words used by military spokesperson for Khan were “not appropriate”
ISLAMABAD: Former prime minister Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party on Saturday responded to allegations by Pakistan military spokesperson Lt. Gen. Ahmed Sharif Chaudhry from a day earlier, saying that he was not a “national security threat.”
Chaudhry, who heads the military’s media wing as director general of the Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR), spoke to journalists on Friday, in which he referred to Khan as a “mentally ill” person several times during the press interaction. Chaudhry described Khan’s anti-army narrative as a “national security threat.”
The military spokesperson was responding to Khan’s social media post this week in which he accused Chief of Defense Forces Field Marshal Asim Munir of being responsible for “the complete collapse of the constitution and rule of law in Pakistan.”
“The people of Pakistan stand with Imran Khan, they stand with PTI,” the party’s secretary-general, Salman Akram Raja, told reporters during a news conference.
“Imran Khan is not a national security threat. Imran Khan has kept the people of this country united.”
Raja said there were several narratives in the country, including those that created tensions along ethnic and sectarian lines, but Khan had rejected all of them and stood with one that the people of Pakistan supported.
PTI Chairman Gohar Ali Khan, flanked by Raja, criticized the military spokesperson as well, saying his press talk on Thursday had “severely disappointed” him.
“The words that were used [by the military spokesperson] were not appropriate,” Gohar said. “Those words were wrong.”
‘NATURAL OUTCOME’
Speaking to reporters earlier on Saturday, Pakistan’s Defense Minister Khawaja Asif defended the military spokesperson’s remarks against Khan.
“When this kind of language is used for individuals as well as for institutions, then a reaction is a natural outcome,” he said.
“The same thing is happening on the Twitter accounts being run in his [Khan’s] name. If the DG ISPR has given any reaction to it, then I believe it was a very measured reaction.”
Khan, who was ousted after a parliamentary vote of confidence in April 2022, blames the country’s powerful military for removing him from power by colluding with his political opponents. Both deny the allegations.
The former prime minister, who has been in prison since August 2023 on a slew of charges he says are politically motivated, also alleges his party was denied victory by the army and his political rivals in the 2024 general election through rigging.
The army and the government both deny his allegations.
