Inconclusive dialogue: MQM slams door of talks with Nawaz govt

Administration likely to adopt the carrot and stick policy now

ISLAMABAD:

Negotiations between the Nawaz administration and the Muttahida Qaumi Movement collapsed on Thursday with both sides sticking to their respective stance.

With no headway in sight, the MQM announced that it would pull out of the talks. However, the government is still hopeful and is likely to adopt the carrot and stick approach with the disgruntled party.

Early Thursday morning MQM leader Farooq Sattar held a news conference in Islamabad to announce the party’s decision of withdrawing from the dialogue, claiming that the administration was not serious enough.

After the news conference, the MQM expected Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif to call the party back to the negotiating table, but the premier has apparently cold-shouldered them.

After hours of waiting, the disappointed leaders of the MQM left for Karachi with the announcement that their resignations should be accepted irrevocably.

The negotiating teams had held a meeting Wednesday night and decided to convene another meeting on Thursday before releasing to the media the draft of the agreement between them.

However, according to sources, MQM chief Altaf Hussain refused to accept the finalised draft, terming it “a weak attempt at addressing the party’s grievances” and stressed that an effective deal be reached instead of a face-saving one.

Meanwhile, the government has once again asked Maulana Fazlur Rehman, chief of his own faction of the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam, to act as mediator between the Nawaz administration and the MQM on the latter’s simultaneous resignations from the National Assembly, Senate and the Sindh Assembly last month over their reservations on the paramilitary Rangers’ ongoing operation in Karachi to rid the port city of terrorists and other criminals.

Instead of accepting the resignations, the government had asked Fazl to lure the MQM back to the talks. The JUI-F chief succeeded in the task and both sides conveyed their demands to each other, but neither wants to budge from its respective stance.

Sattar believes the dialogue process is useless in the current scenario. He said the government had failed to constitute a committee to address the MQM’s concerns on the “forced” disappearance of 150 party workers and “extrajudicial” killing of 45 activists and for justice for “thousands” of members who have been killed.

“The MQM is not only being subjected to a media trial but political victimisation as well. The party has been jettisoned from mainstream politics.”

Sattar said the MQM’s three core demands are allowing the party’s sector commanders to start working, the party to carry out charity work and the party chief’s speeches to be aired.

An MQM delegation later met NA Leader of the Opposition Khursheed Shah who, according to party sources, requested the party to return to the assemblies.

On the other hand, PM Nawaz and the stakeholders in the Karachi operation balked at accepting the MQM’s demands of constituting a committee for addressing the party’s grievances and allowing the party’s sector commanders to work and the party to collect animal hides on Eidul Azha. They believe that the MQM makes around Rs10 billion every year from hides.

The stakeholders have ensured the premier that if the MQM were to be stopped from collecting hides this Eid, then they would be able to say that Karachi’s law and order is in the hands of the law enforcement agencies.

Instead of giving into the MQM’s demands, Nawaz has directed the LEAs to aggressively continue their operation in the city, until they succeed in eliminating every form of terrorism.

The premier also rejected other demands of the party, including that of showing leniency in matters relating to the MQM chief.


Published in The Express Tribune, September 4^th, 2015.