They feared I would appoint Lt Gen Faiz Hameed as army chief: Imran.

ISLAMABAD -- PTI Chairman Imran Khan said Wednesday that the parties in the coalition government were 'afraid' he would appoint Lieutenant General Faiz Hameed as the next chief of army staff.

'They were afraid that I wanted to appoint Lt Gen Faiz. They feared that if that would have happened then it would shatter their future,' the PTI chairman said while hitting out at the government during a seminar on 'Regime Change Conspiracy and Pakistan's Destabilization'.

The ousted prime minister said the incumbent rulers are 'afraid of the army and the Inter-Services Intelligence' as they know that their 'corruption' will be caught at some point.

'Imran Khan does not want to save his corruption, he does not want to appoint his army chief,' said the PTI leader.

Khan said that the incumbent rulers claim that he wanted to appoint an army chief of his choice.

'I never thought of appointing someone as army chief. I have never taken a decision that is not based on merit.'

The PTI chairman berated the incumbent rulers for allegedly 'murdering the institutions' and appointing 'their people' to every institution.

Moving on to the 'regime change conspiracy', Khan said that the United States does not change regimes for a country's betterment. It only does that for its interests, not ours, he added.

He said that in the past, the United States used Pakistan for the 'war on terror', resulting in heavy casualties to Islamabad, while its air bases were also used for drone attacks.

'Our interest is that our soil is not used against Afghanistan or any other country. America wanted us to accept India's demands. It wanted us to forget Kashmir and accept Israel,' he said.

Khan said US Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asia Donald Lu 'arrogantly threatened' Pakistan, so can a 'sovereign nation' accept such threats.

The PTI chairman said he was aware of the...