Reports on Ghani’s secret visit to Pakistan are baseless

KABUL (Pajhwok): The Afghan government has rejected reports that say President Ashraf Ghani had paid secret visit to Pakistan.

Claim: Afghan President Ashraf Ghani paid secret visit to Pakistan

Kamran Khan, a well-known Pakistani journalist and director of Dunya Television channel in a tweet has wrote that Afghan president, Ashraf Ghani had traveled to Pakistan a few months ago and met with Qamar Javed Bajwa one by one.

He said that it was the choice of President Ghani to keep his visit secret.

Another Pakistani journalist, Hamid Mir in an article to a Pakistani newspaper, Jang, also made similar claims.

A number of other Pakistani media outlets and people on social media have also exchanged their views on the issue.

Kabul News, an Afghan private television channel also quoted Pakistani news agencies about the report.

Fact checking:

Fatima Murchal, deputy spokesperson to President Ashraf Ghani, Mir Ahmad Yad, public relations head of the Presidential Palace and Dawa Khan Minapal, head of the Government’s Media Center in their twitter accounts have rejected the claim.

“President Ghani’s last visit to Pakistan was in June 2019, he had no more visits to this country after that date,” they said.

Mir Ahmad Yad in a tweet said, “Pakistan’s politics is based on dreams and fears, Hamid Mir and Kamran Khan wrote that President Ghani had secret visits to Pakistan, but no one asks that if it was a secret visit then how they know about it?”

Outcome: Pakistani media and popular journalists have reported about President Ghani’s secret visits to this country and his secret meetings with Bajwa in plane, but the Presidential Palace rejected the claims.

Verdict: The claim about President Ghani’s secret visit to Pakistan is baseless.

Mds/nh

Ahmad Sohaib Hasrat

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