Daily Times

Minister for Planning and Development Ahsan Iqbal issued a statement on Sunday offering a clarification on his remarks concerning China and the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), which he said was being taken “out of context”. “China maintains a policy of non-interference in domestic affairs of other countries,” he stressed in a Tweet. “Some senior businessmen working on CPEC [China-Pakistan Economic Corridor] projects privately expressed t e opinion that fair and free election was in the best interest of Pakistan to ensure continuity,” he revealed. The minister also added that “by March/April 2018 it had become abundantly clear and was being openly discussed in international media that [the] establishment of that time did not want PML-N [Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz] govt to return and was helping PTI to come in power through interference in [the] electoral process.” Notably, Ahsan Iqbal had claimed during an interview with a private news channel Saturday that China had warned the powers that be against carrying out any new political experiment in Pakistan ahead of the 2018 general elections as Beijing feared that such an experiment would derail the CPEC project.