Daily Times

States and Frontier Regions (Safron) Minister Lt Gen (r) Abdul Qadir Baloch on Saturday said that if former army chief Gen Raheel Sharif accepts the appointment as head of a 39-nation military alliance of Muslim states, he will become controversial.

“If Raheel takes up the appointment, he will become controversial and I feel it might lessen the respect he has earned,” said Baloch. Baloch said that he has had a good relation with Sharif as he served as Baloch’s chief of staff when he was a corps commander.

“For us he has become a source of pride and we would never want his reputation to suffer,” added the minister for states and frontier regions.

Expressing concern, Baloch said that the appointment as head of the alliance will not have the same chances of success as in the Pakistan Army as it will be a “hop scotch alliance and we do not know what the system will be.”

Earlier, Defence Minister Khawaja Asif said that the government had given its green signal for Sharif to take charge as head of the military alliance of Muslim states. However, the minister said official procedures have not yet been completed in this regard. The headquarters of the military alliance would be based in Riyadh.

Pakistan had initially found itself in the crosshairs of Middle Eastern politics as Saudi Arabia named it as part of its newly formed military alliance of Muslim countries meant to combat terrorism, without first getting its consent.