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Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi, in an interview with Geo News host Hamid Mir, revealed that it was actually his decision to block the live telecast of a "press talk" held at PM House that followed a National Security Council (NSC) meeting on May 14.
The NSC meeting was held to discuss former prime minister Nawaz Sharif's controversial statements regarding the 2008 Mumbai attacks that he gave in an interview to Dawn.
"The impression that there was a blackout of the press talk is wrong," said the prime minister. "It was my decision not to air it. It was recorded but there were a lot of things that had been discussed in that briefing which [if telecast] would have given people a wrong impression. So I ordered not to telecast it since I had to address the matter before the assembly anyway."
Moreover, the premier insisted that the statements in Nawaz's interview had been "misreported". However, when Mir asked whether the premier meant what had been written or what had been said, the latter avoided the question.
The premier's similar remarks following the NSC meeting had compounded the confusion about the outcome of the top-level huddle when he claimed that NSC members had in fact condemned “misreporting” by the newspaper and not Nawaz Sharif’s statement, as was reported earlier.
The prime minister also discussed with Mir his meeting with Sharif, which had taken place almost immediately after the NSC meeting, claiming that the ousted premier had reiterated his stance that Pakistan's territory should not be used against any other country and had agreed that the statements that had been published were "based on misreporting".
'Did not discuss Hafiz Saeed's relocation with Chinese president'
Prime Minister Abbasi also denied Indian media reports that Chinese President Xi Jinping had suggested relocating Jamaatud Dawa Chief Hafiz Saeed to a West Asian country during a meeting between the two leaders on the sidelines of the Boao Forum in China.
"Hafiz Saeed has never been a topic of conversation in any of the meetings I have had with President Xi," he asserted.
Cannot prosecute diplomats, says Abbasi
When asked about the trial of US Defence and Air Attaché Col Joseph Emanuel Hall, who had killed a biker and injured another in a road accident in Islamabad, the prime minister said that due to the conventions of diplomatic immunity it was not possible for Pakistan to try him.
He claimed that the impression that Pakistan could somehow restrain the colonel and prosecute him for his crime was wrong since it was against the international law that protects diplomats.
He, however, added that it was the moral responsibility of the Pakistani government to provide compensation to the victim's family.
