Pakistan Army chief, DGMO to brief Senate on national security

A committee of the Pakistan Senate will receive a briefing on national security from Chief of Army Staff (COAS) General Qamar Javed Bajwa and Director General of Military Operations (DGMO), Major General Sahir Shamshad Mirza on 19 December.

According to the Dawn, the briefing by the two senior army officers will be done in-camera.

The daily further said that this extraordinary meeting would be presided over by Senate Chairman Raza Rabbani, and added that Tuesday's meeting between lawmakers and the military leadership in Parliament would taking place for the first time after six years.

The last meeting between the two took place in May 2011 when then army chief General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani and the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) Director General Lt. Gen. Ahmed Shuja Pasha had briefed a joint session of parliament about the Abbottabad operation in which Al Qaeda head Osama bin Laden had been killed by the US forces.

The one-point agenda issued for Tuesday's meeting of the Committee of the Whole House formed by the chairman is aimed at preparing "policy guidelines in the light of the emerging regional realities and the role of the United States".

Sources told Dawn that the decision to give the briefing to the senators had been taken voluntarily by the military leadership after seeing media reports about criticism in the Senate on the federal government and the military leadership for not taking the parliament into confidence over recent developments.

-ANI