ISLAMABAD (The Thursday Times) — The government is in “off-the-record” contact with some leaders of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf, the prime minister’s political adviser Rana Sanaullah said on Tuesday, but he would not name them, saying it could cause them problems inside their own party.
“We have off-the-record contacts with them, with those friends,” Sanaullah told Geo News. The contacts took place from time to time by telephone and during sessions of the National Assembly and Senate, he said, and could become formal, on-the-record negotiations once they took concrete shape.
Asked what was holding them back, Sanaullah pointed to divisions within PTI. He said the party had discussed in its own meetings how the previous round of talks had been “sabotaged”, and claimed that members who wanted the talks to succeed had faced trolling and pressure that kept them quiet.
‘No logic’
The right first step to restart the stalled dialogue, Sanaullah said, would be a meeting between Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, as Leader of the House, and Leader of the Opposition Mahmood Khan Achakzai. He said there was “no logic” in the opposition leader’s refusal to meet at the Prime Minister’s House, noting that the prime minister had walked over to the opposition leader’s seat whenever he attended the House.
PTI had given the government no sign, formally or informally, that it had changed its approach, Sanaullah said. He called on the party to return to the parliamentary committees it has boycotted while still sitting in the House, and said trust could grow once the discussions inside PTI turned into “a clear method” of moving forward. Dialogue, he said, was ultimately the only way to settle political disputes.
