ISLAMABAD: The Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) on Thursday stepped in to quash rumours that Army Chief Gen Asim Munir made a secret trip to the United States while on a visit to the United Kingdom.

“There have been baseless speculations on social media that [the] COAS is visiting USA,” the ISPR tweeted.

The rumours that Gen Munir quietly flew across the Atlantic began after a former army officer, currently based in Britain, claimed in a tweet that the army chief’s aircraft went to the US on Feb 6 and landed at New Jersey’s Teterboro Airport.

The claim soon went viral, sparking speculation about the reasons behind the secret travel. The wave of rumours was so strong that even some well-known journalists fell victim to it.

The ISPR, while denying that Gen Munir travelled to the US, recalled that he was on an official visit to UK from Feb 5 to 10 in connection with the fifth Pakistan-UK Stabilisation Conference — a bi-annual event for military-to-military cooperation between the two countries.

The conference is being held since 2016 and senior Pakistani military officials have regularly participated in it.

Meanwhile, Gen Munir left the UK on Thursday morning to return home and made a stop over in Abu Dhabi.

Published in Dawn, February 10th, 2023