ISLAMABAD:
The PTI and government negotiating teams are expected to meet on Wednesday – after the former’s possible meeting with Imran Khan at Adiala jail – for the third round of ongoing talks between the two sides aimed at ending a political crisis for a long time.
According to sources, amid a stalemate that both sides blamed on each other, President Sadiq on Saturday held a telephone conversation with National Assembly opposition leader Omar Ayub and former president of National Assembly, Asad Qaiser, in response to a text message sent by Ayub.
During this communication, members of the PTI negotiating team complained about not being allowed to meet party founder Imran Khan, a crucial meeting before continuing talks with the government.
In response, President Ayaz Sadiq reiterated his position that organizing such meetings was neither his responsibility in the past nor today. However, he assured them that he would make efforts to facilitate a meeting between the negotiating team and the PTI founder. They said that later Sadiq contacted the government to arrange a meeting of the PTI negotiating team with the PTI founder in jail.
The sources said the meeting was likely to take place in the next two days, allowing the third round of negotiations between the government coalition and PTI teams to continue on Wednesday. During this round, the PTI team is expected to present its written demands.
Before this development, Ayaz Sadiq said in a statement that it was not his responsibility to arrange a meeting between incarcerated former Prime Minister Imran Khan and his party’s negotiating committee.
“My job is only to facilitate negotiations between the government and the PTI,” he said.
While shifting the burden to the ruling coalition, he noted that the government and its allies would have to decide whether a meeting can take place or not, saying he was ready to respond to any request.
Regarding the delay in convening the third meeting between the two sides, Sadiq said neither the opposition nor the government had yet contacted him to convene a meeting of the negotiating committees.
Sadiq said: “The government and its allies must decide whether the meeting can take place or not,” adding “whenever the parties agree, I am ready to call a meeting with one or two days’ notice “.
He also suggested that PTI leaders could communicate directly with government officials, including Prime Minister’s Advisor on Political Affairs Rana Sanaullah, over the delay in the meeting.
During the previous meeting between the two parties on January 2, the PTI had asked for more time by pledging to present its charter of demands in the third round on the condition of having access to the imprisoned party founder, Imran Khan.
Until Friday, the party’s negotiating committee was not allowed to meet Imran, forcing it to not only question the government’s authority to conduct meaningful negotiations.
PTI leaders said the government had promised to hold a meeting between the party committee and its founder, but was yet to facilitate the meeting, thereby delaying progress in finalizing the charter of demands.
Even before the speaker’s suggestion of having direct contact, PTI Information Secretary Sheikh Waqas Akram had indicated that the PTI was not talking directly to the government, adding that the party was contacting the President’s office, then he addressed the government.
“The facilitation comes from the President’s office; we do not deal directly with the government on these issues,” Akram had told The Express PK Press Club a few days ago.
Stating that the issue was raised during the meeting with the government, Akram had said the party had also contacted the President’s office but was informed that there was no response regarding the meeting yet with Imran.
Subsequently, the speaker regretted the PTI leaders’ statement, stating that it was neither his mandate nor his responsibility to arrange a meeting between the negotiating team and Imran Khan.
The meeting between Imran Khan and the PTI negotiating committee has become a sticking point as the party’s negotiating team has not yet been allowed to have an unsupervised interaction with Imran.
This failure led PTI leaders to declare that there would be no progress at the next meeting if the committee was not allowed to meet the party founder before the next round of negotiations.
Talks between the PTI and the government began on December 23 in a bid to resolve thorny issues between the two sides, but things are yet to go beyond optics.
Both sides have met twice so far, but neither the PTI has presented its demands in writing nor the government side has been able to arrange a meeting between the PTI committee and Imran Khan.
The initial delay in filing applications was attributed to the PTI’s strategy to learn the outcome of the judgment in the £190 million corruption case against Khan and others, including his wife.
The court’s decision was scheduled for January 6 but was later delayed until January 13, leaving the PTI to claim that talks will continue even if Imran Khan is found guilty in the case.
After the January 2 meeting, the PTI began questioning the government’s authority over talks when it failed to open the gates of Adiala prison for a meeting.
PTI chief Shoaib Shaheen quoted Imran Khan as saying that PTI should speak directly to powerful stakeholders as they are the ones who hold the real power.
Shaheen questioned why the government started the process of talks if it had no power, saying the delay in allowing a meeting between Imran Khan and the party’s political leadership was enough to show sincerity of the government in the talks.
In a video statement posted on his official X account earlier on Saturday, Asad Qaiser accused PML-N leaders Maryam Nawaz and Khawaja Asif of trying to sabotage the negotiation process.
“We are an oppressed party. We have been persecuted [and] bullets were fired at our people,” he said, lamenting that the embattled party was being accused of trying to undermine the talks while being the target of “authoritarianism.”
