President Dr Arif Alvi has taken serious notice of the news items published in various sections of the press wherein the president’s statement regarding the cipher taken out of an interview with a private news channel on Monday was “grossly misquoted and wrongly highlighted”.
“In his interview, the pclearly said that he had suspicions about a conspiracy but of course, certainty could only be established after a thorough investigation was done,” a President House statement said issued on Tuesday. The statement mentioned that “His position has not changed at all since he sent a letter to the Chief Justice of Pakistan wherein, he requested the Supreme Court for a thorough inquiry into the matter as he strongly believed that the issue must be investigated”.
“He referred the matter to Supreme Court not because he had no suspicions about a conspiracy, but because he ‘had suspicions’ as the matter was raised by the ex-PM of the country and an impartial investigation was necessary including all the circumstantial evidence available,” as per the statement of the President House.
The statement mentioned that President Alvi in his interview had said that “We cannot ignore the fact that the national outfall of the cipher and its repercussions led to political upheaval, therefore an impartial inquiry, beyond the demarche issued by the Government of Pakistan, was requested”.
The President House termed it “unfortunate” that the words of the president were distorted on a very grave matter with serious implications.
President Alvi has spoken many times on the issue of ‘out of context’ portrayals, including in the Parliament that create more division in an already polarised atmosphere.
Meanwhile, President Alvi called for the need to further cement bilateral ties between Pakistan and Maldives in all fields of mutual interest, especially in the education, health and tourism sectors.
The president, talking to Pakistan’s High Commissioner-designate to the Maldives, Vice Admiral (r) Muhammad Fayyaz Gilani, advised the envoy-designate to especially focus on establishing strategic ties with the Maldives in sectors such as trade, business and investment and people-to-people contacts. He also called for bilateral cooperation in health, education, human resource development as well as in the fields of defence, climate change and tourism.
The president highlighted the potential of cooperation in the tourism industry between the two countries as the Maldives was a world-class tourism destination and Pakistan could benefit from its expertise.
He said that Pakistan could offer the distance learning and hybrid learning as well as the education expertise of Allama Iqbal Open University and the Virtual University of Pakistan for imparting competitive and high-quality education in various educational disciplines to the Maldivian students.
President Alvi expressed his satisfaction over the existing cordial relations and hoped that the newly appointed envoy would effectively utilize all available diplomatic mechanisms, including the Bilateral Political Consultations (BPC), Joint Economic Commission, and Joint Business Councils, to increase bilateral engagements as well as cooperation within the framework of SARRC, OIC, UN and Commonwealth.
The president also asked the envoy to convey his greetings and best wishes to the President of Maldives, Ibrahim Mohamed Solih.
