1:07 AM
Muhammad Zai Khan
PESHAWAR: The Awami National Party’s chief Asfandyar Wali Khan was offered the post of president but he turned it down, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s Information Minister Mian Iftikhar Hussain said here on Wednesday, confirming a disclosure made in a US diplomatic cable released by WikiLeaks.
“Asfandyar Wali Khan received the offer to become the president but he declined,” he said in reply to a question.
“Our party didn’t have the support required for the post and we could not accept the offer,” he said.
The cable released by WikiLeaks said the offer had been made by army chief Gen Ashfaq Parvez Kayani.
“The ANP believed that the post of the president should be held by the party having the required number of seats in parliament,” the minister said.
However, he said, it was a matter of immense pride that a Pakhtun leader had been offered the job.He (Asfandyar) consulted the party and it was decided to decline the offer because it would have been inappropriate to hold a post to which it was not entitled constitutionally.
