Former spymaster General Faiz Hameed insistently joined the Faizabad sit-in agreement, which brought an end to over 20 days of countrywide protests in 2017, PML-N leader Ahsan Iqbal said on Monday.

“I was in touch with the PM when this [Faizabad sit-in] agreement was being signed. When I told him this whole thing, he said it does not seem appropriate that general sahib [Former Inter-Services Intelligence chief Lt-Gen (retd) Faiz Hameed] sign this,” he said in an interview with Hamid Mir on his show Capital Talk on Geo News.

“I also told him that general sahib this [Faizabad sit-in agreement] is a political document and your signature on it will not seem appropriate. He [Faiz] replied that the second party [various religious parties] want that my signature should be on it.”

He was speaking about the army-brokered deal on the sit-in that blocked the main artery that connected Islamabad to other cities.

Protesters from various religious groups on November 27, 2017, cleared Faizabad interchange under an army-brokered agreement.

The agreement carried the signatures of the-then Interior Minister Ahsan Iqbal and former interior secretary Arshad Mirza from the government side, and leaders of Tehreek-i-Labbaik Pakistan, erstwhile Tehreek-i-Labbaik Ya Rasool Allah, Khadim Hussain Rizvi, Afzal Qadri and Mohammad Waheed Noor as representatives of the protesters. Hameed of the ISI had signed the agreement in the capacity of “guarantor”.

When asked, Iqbal said: “I still remember it and I told him [Faiz] that it is not appropriate for you and your institution, but his reply was that the agreement won’t be acceptable if they have not any guarantee.”

Last month, former prime minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi called for reviewing the entire Faizabad protests

In an interview with Geo News, he had said that it was unusual for the ISI to sign the agreement, especially from top officials.