ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s national security adviser Dr. Moeed Yusuf told a group of journalists in Lahore on Saturday the newly launched national security policy (NSP) was apolitical and the opposition should not surround it with controversy in the larger interest of the state, reported the local media.

The public version of the country’s first policy document covering traditional and non-traditional security threats was launched by Prime Minister Imran Khan on Friday, who described it as an “all-encompassing and multidimensional” effort.

Apart from Pakistan’s defense and territorial integrity, the document focused on areas like economic stability, human security and national cohesion.

“If the opposition does not want to receive a formal briefing on the NSP and provide its input, does it want to delay this all-important policy that has already taken seven long years [to formulate],” Dawn quoted him as saying.

According to the state-run Associated Press of Pakistan news agency, Yusuf maintained the new policy did not need to be placed before parliament since it had been duly presented to the Parliamentary Committee on National Security.

However, Dawn reported him as saying he was willing to present the document to parliament or house committees to create greater political consensus on it.

The national security adviser informed that the Senate Defense Committee that is headed by an opposition leader, Mushahid Husain Sayed, had invited him for an in-camera briefing earlier this month and praised the policy.

“It is unfair to say the government does not want a consensus by not according any opportunity to the opposition to discuss and give its input,” he added.

Yusuf called the NSP an evolving document which would undergo mandatory annual reviews.

However, he noted “the key direction of the policy will never be reversed.”

The country’s opposition parties, meanwhile, asked the government to present the policy to parliament, adding it was not right to bypass the legislative forum on important issues covered in the document.

“Parliament has no knowledge of the National Security Policy,” the opposition Pakistan Peoples Party’s member Dr. Nafisa Shah was quoted by Express Tribune. “Bypassing the opposition and parliament on this issue is a matter of concern.”