The Deal: Syed Talat Hussain

People want to know whether there is a deal behind the anti-climax to the memogate scandal. Let me say that there looks to be a ‘clear understanding’ if not a deal. The crucial question is who all are involved in this ‘clear understanding’? The straightforward answer is:the judiciary and the PML-N leadership. I must admit that I have no classified information in this regard. But what I do have is a sequence of events. The memogate became a controversy when Imran Khan raised it in his Lahore Jalsa. However, it became a news event when Mian Nawaz Sharif and his party members went to the Court with petitions. The tone of the petition gave the matter an additional urgency and subsequent statements from Nawaz Sharif added fuel to this fire of expectation. Matching the urgency of Mian Sharif the Supreme Court issued an immediate short order and even appointed a special probe officer, who later on declined to be part of it all. Later on the Court established a special commission to probe that matter. Now the urgency has disappeared, and the Court has allowed the former ambassador to the US, Hussain Haqqani, at the heart of the controversy, to travel abroad. It has extended the probe commission’s time of inquiry as well. Mian Nawaz Sharif has conveniently abscented himself from the scene and is travelling abroad. His party members are no longer concerned about ‘grave threat to national security.’ They are no longer shouting from the rooftop that the memogate was an attempt to bring down the state of Pakistan from within. The judges and the PML-N, it looks, have both gone quiet and cold on this score. If there is a deal, this is where it has been made.

courtesy: Sach media