Late Tuesday night, the veteran leader Rana Sanaullah of PML-N announced that the government is accommodating the demand of PTI for an indefinite timeframe in the current talks. This follows the conveyance by PTI Chairman Barrister Gohar Ali Khan who has informed about former premier Imran Khan’s demand for a time-defined timeline for actions against the party.
Because of the political turmoil that erupted almost following Imran’s imprisonment last year in several cases, the relations of PTI with the government and establishment soured to the extent where frequent public protests turned violent with state repression. The tensions grew even when PTI rallied last month called ‘Final Call’ when renewed calls were made to ban the party with task forces formed to keep an eye on the allegations regarding “malicious campaigns.” PTI claims its supporters died a dozen in this time which the government denies.
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Imran Khan probably took the cue from these events to announce a five-member committee to negotiate with “anyone.” This seems to be a change in stance for PTI parliamentarians. Thus Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, on the advice of NA Speaker Ayaz Sadiq, also constituted a committee with ruling coalition members thus the government formed a committee with PTI. The first meeting between the government’s and PTI’s committees was held on Monday signaling the long-awaited negotiations that would hold on to conflicts politically.
Yesterday, while speaking to the media outside Adiala Jail after having met with Imran, Barrister Gohar maintained that the former premier suggested a timeframe within which some headway should be made in the negotiations. He came out with a late-night response to this demand of the senior PML-N leader Rana Sanaullah while speaking to Geo News: “The government would ‘accommodate such a request’.
“If they want to fix a timeline, let them, because that will mean that the meetings will then be fast-paced in keeping with that time line. It is not that they will visit us to present all their demands, and vice versa.” In this way, sauntering from point to point and demand to demand in search of a common meeting ground is obviously going to take time.
“To say that the talks should have a quick result, there is no such thing from our end,” he stated. “But if they want this to reach a result quickly, then there’s no resistance from our end. They can say what they need to, and then we will present our stance to them.”