ISLAMABAD: Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Chairman Barrister Gohar Khan dismissed reports suggesting the possibility of indirect talks between his party and the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N), stating that the Imran Khan-founded party has not proposed any dialogue with the ruling party.
Speaking to a private TV channel, Barrister Gohar noted that only matters pertaining to the National Assembly were discussed during their meeting with NA Speaker Ayaz Sadiq and said, “The PTI neither offered any talks nor sought any favors.”
His statement comes amid reports supporting the prospects of dialogue between the PTI and its arch-rival, the PML-N.
In contrast to the PTI chairman’s rebuttal, Pashtunkhwa Milli Awami Party (PkMAP) Chairman and the PTI-led opposition alliance Tehreek Tahafuz Aiyeen-e-Pakistan chief Mahmood Khan Achakzai confirmed the PML-N’s offer of negotiations, Media reported.
“All the political leadership, including Nawaz Sharif, is on the same page regarding the Constitution. I have met Rana Sanaullah. There is no other way to move the country forward except through negotiations,” Achakzai said during an informal conversation with journalists in Islamabad.
Recalling that the PTI had chosen him to lead the negotiations, Achakzai remarked that the former ruling party should have given a positive response to Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif’s offer of talks, and that apart from Khan, the party leadership’s opposition to dialogue did not matter.
Despite the veteran politician’s confirmation, ambiguity surrounds the prospects of PTI-PML-N talks as incarcerated Khan has repeatedly ruled out negotiations with the Nawaz Sharif-led party, saying he would hold talks only with those who wield real power in the country.
“Achakzai will only hold talks with political parties,” Khan said last month, while stressing that he was open to talks but only within the “ambit provided by the Constitution.”
A day earlier, two senior PML-N leaders — Federal Minister for Planning Ahsan Iqbal and Defence Minister Khawaja Asif — expressed their opposition to the prospects of talks with the PTI, with the former conditioning it on an apology from Khan’s party for allegedly staging last year’s May 9 violent protests.
