PTI’s ‘cipher drama’ exposed at US Congressional hearing: Ata Tarar

ISLAMABAD: Minister for Information and Broadcasting Ata Tarar on Wednesday said today’s US Congressional hearing had completely exposed the “cipher drama” orchestrated by the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) founder Imran Khan against the country, just for the sake of his personal interests.

“The PTI chairman’s deceit and hypocrisy has been exposed before the whole world today as [US Assistant Secretary of State] Donld Lu testified before the Congress and called the cipher a complete falsehood,” the minister said while addressing a news conference.

Ata Tarar condemned the PTI’s conspiracy in the strongest terms lashing out the party for their all the anti-state moves including May 9 riots and protests outside the International Monetary Fund (IMF) Headquarters for derailing Pakistan talks with the lender on final review of the standby agreement.

“The PTI hired lobbyists in the United States for a congress hearing on the so-called regime change conspiracy, but their leader could not evade the divine justice,” he said.

Tarar said hiring of the lobbyists in the US for congressional hearing was solely meant to malign the country, but it was the PTI founder Imran Khan who was declared a “certified liar” in the end.

The minister said the US diplomat had not only exposed the ‘cipher drama’, but also expressed satisfaction over the credibility of the general election as well as women empowerment in Pakistan during the proceeding.

On the other hand, he said the PTI went to extreme length Just to double down their false narrative on the cipher which severely damaged Pakistan’s diplomatic relations with other countries.

The PTI founder waved a white paper in a public gathering and claimed that his government was being ousted in result of a foreign conspiracy, the minister said accusing him of misleading the whole nation and inflicting severe damage on the country.

Today, he had been humiliated before whole world that was telecasted by every international media channel, Ata Tarar added.

Ata Tarar’s press conference came an hour after US Assistant Secretary of State Donald Lu once again rejected former prime minister Imran Khan’s cipher allegations and termed it as a “conspiracy theory, lie and complete falsehood”.

Testifying today before a subcommittee of the US panel, Lu said: “Imran Khan’s cipher conspiracy theory is a lie [and] it is a complete falsehood.”

“It is not accurate. At no point does it accuse the US government or me personally of taking steps against Imran Khan. And thirdly, the other person in the meeting, the then-ambassador of Pakistan to the US, has testified to his own government that there was no conspiracy.”

The hearing titled ‘Pakistan After the elections: Examining the future of Democracy in Pakistan and the US Pakistan relationship,’ was announced by the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee where Lu was questioned about the allegations and his assessment of them.

Lu further said that then Pakistan’s envoy to Washington Asad Majeed also testified to his government that there was no conspiracy.

“We respect the sovereignty of Pakistan, we respect the principle that Pakistani people should be the only ones to choose their leader through democratic process,” he remarked.