Interior Minister Rana Sanaullah has revealed that the cypher was not presented in the National Security Committee meeting held soon after the incumbent government took over, insisting that the then ambassador to the US had instead only briefed the meeting. A few days after the PTI government was toppled through a no-confidence motion in the National Assembly, an NSC meeting was held under the new premier, Shehbaz Sharif, which affirmed that there was no foreign conspiracy against Imran. “The NSC discussed the telegram (cipher) received from the Pakistan embassy in Washington. Pakistan’s former ambassador to the US briefed the committee on the context and content of his telegram,” a statement issued after the NSC had said. “The NSC, after examining the contents of the communication, reaffirmed the decisions of the last NSC meeting. The NSC was again informed by the premier security agencies that they have found no evidence of any conspiracy.
Therefore, the NSC after reviewing the contents of the communication, the assessments received, and the conclusions presented by the security agencies, concludes that there has been no foreign conspiracy,” it had said. However, the interior minister has clarified that the cipher was not presented or shown in the meeting. “There was no such cipher presented in the NSC meeting held soon after we took the reins,” Sanaullah told a private TV channel. Sanaullah said that the then Pakistan’s Ambassador to the United States, Asad Majeed Khan had appeared before committee and “denied [finding] any conspiracy in the cipher”. The interior minister said that the “master copy” of the cipher must be with the Foreign Office while its copies were sent to the president, chief justice of Pakistan, National Assembly speaker and the Prime Minister’s Office. However, Imran took the PMO with him, he alleged.
