ISLAMABAD: Information Minister Pervez Rashid has urged the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) to end its on-going protest before proceeding for talks with the government.
“Protests and talks cannot go together,” he said while addressing a meeting of the Federal Executive Council of a faction of the Pakistan Federal Union of Journalists yesterday.
The minister asked the PTI leadership to take steps for making the “atmosphere conducive to resumption of dialogue”.
PTI leader Dr Arif Alvi, who remained a member of the party’s negotiating team, expressed surprise over the minister’s call, saying: “The atmosphere has been conducive to talks for past many months as there has been no violence or any unconstitutional act committed by the PTI.”
He said the PTI had been holding peaceful sit-ins and public meetings at various places in the country and the protests could not be called off at any cost.
On the other hand, he alleged, the government had used force against PTI workers and put them behind bars. Yet, he said, PTI was “peacefully waiting” for the resumption of talks.
Finance Minister Ishaq Dar, who led the government’s negotiating team before talks with the PTI collapsed in September, has already said that dialogue could resume soon after Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s return to the country from the UK.
Despite public pronouncements of their willingness to resume talks, both sides have been accusing each other of putting hurdles in the way of dialogue.
A source in the PML-N said that the prime minister was expected to have a consultative meeting with his close aides in a day or two to discuss the agenda for talks with the PTI.
Meanwhile, hitting out hard at the PTI chief for his alleged failure to present proof of rigging in a Lahore constituency before an election tribunal earlier in the day, the information minister said Khan had been against exposed before the nation.
Internews
