A brief notification issued by the Prime Minister's Office read "General Qamar Javed Bajwa is appointed Chief of Army Staff for another term of three years from the date of completion of current tenure.”
“The decision has been taken in view of the regional security environment,” it stated.
General Bajwa was appointed as the chief of Army staff by former jailed Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif in November 2016.
The 58-year-old general was expected to retire this year.
The move comes after Pakistan downgraded diplomatic and trade ties with India in response to India’s decision of scrapping Article 370 in Jammu and Kashmir revoking its special status and its further bifurcation into two Union territories.
Reacting to India's decision, Pakistan expelled the Indian High Commissioner, after deciding to downgrade diplomatic ties with New Delhi
Pakistan Army has since then violated the ceasefire along the LoC in Jammu and Kashmir’s several districts, a number of times. Upping the ante, the country said on Saturday that its army was "fully prepared" to face any challenge posed by India in the wake of current tensions between the two countries over Kashmir.
The move, however, is being widely criticized by Pakistani citizens on social media with many users terming it as the “darkest day in Pakistan’s history”.
Pakistan recently approached the United Nations Security Council to hold a rare meeting on Kashmir. The consultations on Kashmir by the Security Council ended without any outcome or statement from the powerful 15-nation UN organ, dealing a huge snub to Pakistan and its all-weather ally China to internationalise the issue, which an overwhelming majority stressed is a bilateral matter between New Delhi and Islamabad.