Next meeting on Tuesday: Impasse in Shah-Abbasi talks on caretaker PM

Both fail to finalise the interim premier as Abbasi flies to Turkey

ISLAMABAD: Talks between the prime minister and leader of the opposition in the National Assembly remained inconclusive on Friday. Both sides failed to finalise the prospective caretaker prime minister before the PM left for Turkey.

Another round of talks in this regard is scheduled to be held on Tuesday.

Sources privy to the Abbasi-Shah meeting said that PPP’s Khursheed Ali Shah sought the PM to pick either former governor State Bank Dr Ishrat Hussain or Pakistan’s Permanent Representative to United Nations Dr Maleeha Lodhi or former chief justice of the Supreme Court Tassaduq Hussain Jillani.

The government, however, is pressing for one of its own candidates: Former secretary of the ECP Ishtiak Ahmad Khan and former chief justices Jawad S Khawaja and Anwar Zaheer Jamali.



Sources in the ruling camp quoted the prime minister as having told Shah that he would give consideration to names forwarded by Shah in the next round of talks because the PM did not have enough time on Friday.

“The PM believes in resolving this issue. But this needs a detailed discussion with the leader of the opposition (in the NA) that is only possible after Abbasi’s Turkey visit,” the source said.

Abbasi is also reported to have assured Shah that the name of the prospective caretaker prime minister would be finalised in the next meeting.

Shah later told media persons that his meeting with the PM remained inconclusive and that the next meeting would be held on Tuesday.

“The PM will be in Turkey. We were scheduled to meet again on Sunday, but we decided to meet again on Tuesday. I hope the name for the caretaker PM will be finalised then,” he said.

He refused to discuss specifics about the meeting held on Friday.

Abbasi and Shah were scheduled to hold the second round of negotiations in the first week of this month but the meeting was postponed because of a deadlock between the two sides.

A few days ago, Shah said that the name of the caretaker PM could be finalised by May 16.

Sources in opposition parties said that Shah was trying to avoid giving an impression that the government was refusing to accept opposition’s terms on accepting the opposition’s nomination.



“Shah sahib’s previous statement that talks would be finalised by May 16 implied that the government had refused to finalise the name of the caretaker PM before the budget,” said an opposition legislator.

The federal budget or Finance Bill 2018 was passed by the NA before the Shah-Abbasi meeting on Friday.

PM leaves for Turkey:

Immediately after the meeting with Shah, Abbasi left for Turkey to participate in the 7th Extraordinary Summit of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), convened by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to discuss the situation of Palestinians at the hands of Israeli forces.

On Tuesday, Turkish PM Binali Yildrim had invited PM Abbasi to attend the OIC session.