Imran Khan arrived in UK for private visit

London(P.R)Chairman of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf arrived in the UK for a short private visit today. He was received by the PTI UK Coordinator Rabia Zia and PTI team at Heathrow Airport on April 02 2009.
In the Press release,Khan congratulated the PTI team on the restoration of Chief Justice Iftekhar Chaudhry and to a question around submitting potential cases that have violated the Constitution to the Supreme Court,Khan explained that the PTI Central Exec Committee is reviewing these cases to see which ones should be invoked as there are a few which can only be invoked by the Federal Government i.e. Article 6 to try Musharraf.
He said that the people of Pakistan have shown their resiliency & commitment twice now. First with a movement to overthrow the military dictator Musharraf and then by the Long March to restore Chief Justice Iftekhar Chaudry. He emphasized that Pakistan today is under pressure from all sides, internal and external. Normal people are suffering. War on terror is a failure and President Obama's policy is not going to work especially if it means more drone attacks & more military action as this will likely lead to further instability in Pakistan. There seems to be no end to this war on terror especially as the current government does not have a clear sustainable foreign policy that guarantees Pakistan's sovereignty. The government of Pakistan is taking blood money from the US and in return is using its own army to kill its own people. To add to our woes, Pakistan's economy has suffered a loss of approx $ 36 billion. And now our intelligence agency ISI is also under criticism by the US and we know that all countries have intelligence agencies. The only beneficiaries of all these actions are our enemies.
On the way forward, he suggested that the government of Pakistan needs a time table from the US to pull out their troops from Afghanistan & replace these with neutral forces and start serious dialogue. Drone attacks are a tried and failed strategy which is increasing terrorism and radicalizing the society as people. There was a statement from Beitullah Mesud (although not certain of its validity) where he has said that the recent attacks in Pakistan are in retaliation of the drone attacks. The question is very clear 'How can a sovereign country allow attacks on its own people from its own land on behalf of another nation'.
Internally there are ongoing theatrics being played out in Punjab where the government keeps on changing and with every change officers are transfered from their posts. This is sheer waste of money and the civil service is being destroyed as clearly no procedures are being followed. There seems to be a total lack of governance . The PPP government has appointed 90 ministers - again millions of rupees are being spent on their upkeep and maintenance. Seems to be clear that President Zardari is only interested in strengthening his position rather than focusing on strengthening the institutions in Pakistan today. On Altaf Hussain case, Mr. Khan said that the case is very much in progress, however first it was being hindered by the Musharraf government and now the hinderance is the Zardari government. However during my current visit to the UK, I will be meeting with my lawyers for a follow up.