Govt 'ready for talks' with PTI despite apprehension

The incumbent government has welcomed the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf’s softened stance on holding dialouge with the political parties, despite expressing reservations over the PTI's "poor track record".

Speaking on Geo News programme 'Capital Talk', PM’s aide on political affairs Rana Sanaullah appreciated PTI's offer to hold talks, saying that in the past the opposition party always turned down the offers to engage in negotiations with political rivals.

"When he [Imran Khan] was in government he would say that I would not hold talks with opposition and I would not spare them,” Sanaullah recalled.

He said during his 3.5-year tenure, Imran never called then-opposition leader Shehbaz Sharif and never met the members of the opposition benches in parliament.

"As of today, his stance is that he will only hold talks with establishment. But now if they [PTI] have realised then this is a very good thing,” the PM’s aide remarked.

The statement came a a day after the meeting between National Assembly Speaker Ayaz Sadiq and top PTI leaders including Asad Qaiser, Omar Ayub and Sunni Ittehad Council (SIC) Chairman Sahibzada Hamid Raza at the Speaker House in Islamabad.

Following the key meeting, embattled PTI and the government have agreed to sit on the negotiation table without any preconditions ahead of the former’s civil disobedience movement, the insiders said.

The meeting was held following a telephonic contact between Qaiser and Sadiq, the sources added.

Responding to a question on PTI’s demand to release Imran Khan from jail, Sanaullah — in today's show — said the PTI founder was not under judicial custody due to several cases registered against him.

He said the prime minister could not issue any order to provide relief to the jailed PTI founder as he was not behind bars due to any executive order.

Sanaullah said then PML-N had offered the PTI to hold talks during the PTI tenure when its members were being victimized and booked in fake cases.

"Shehbaz Sharif had stated in the presence of [then prime minister] Imran Khan that we were ready to sit with you to chalk out the charter of economy."

Similarly, he said Prime Minister Shehbaz, speaking on the floor of the house recently, offered opposition to hold negotiations to settle disputes.

However, the PM’s aide said the PTI had always turned down the talks offer maintaining that they would only hold talks with those wielding real power and the incumbent rulers are "powerless".

Separately, PML-N Parliamentary Leader in the Senate, Senator Irfan Siddiqui said that if Pakistan Tehreek Insaf (PTI) was ready for dialogue, ‘we are all set for it’.

However, he mentioned, that the PTI should not hang a sword that if talks were not held by such a date they would start a disobedience movement, adding this kind of behaviour could not go together.

"We want to talk, we do not want any riots, Pakistan has to move forward and to move forward it is necessary to abandon old customs."

Siddiqui said that peaceful protest was a fundamental right in democratic societies, questioning, whether was this right unconditional in any country.

He said, "Whether peaceful protest is done with slogans of Jihad-Al-Jihad, kill and die, and sticks with nails."

'Dialogue only way out'

Meanwhile, PTI leader Latif Khosa — in the same programme — said that all the matters have to be resolved via dialogue.

"However, our basic demand was to release Imran Khan as the current [PTI] leadership cannot take any decision without consulting him [Imran]."

To a question as to what caused the change of heart in PTI’s policy to only hold talks with powerful quarters, Khosa said the party would present the same demands even in talks with ruling parties that it had been protesting against including alleged rigging during the February 8 elections.

He said there is nothing wrong in meeting with the ruling parties’ members and the PTI would present the same demands before the incumbent rulers, including releasing Imran Khan.