Govt ready for dialogue minus ‘political interns’

Minister for Information and Broadcasting Senator Shibli Faraz on Monday said that the government was ready for dialogue with the opposition parties but only the serious-minded leadership and the appropriate forum for it would be parliament as it represented the people's will.

Addressing a news conference along with Minister for Science and Technology Chaudhry Fawad Hussain and Minister for Water Resources Faisal Vawda, he said, “National dialogue is part of politics but both PML-N Vice President Maryam Nawaz and JUI-F chief Maulana Fazlur Rehman, who are not part of parliament, will be excluded from the process.”

Shibli said that the government has also given the dialogue agenda, which would be reforms in the electoral system.

Criticising the opposition parties, he said that they were seeking resignation from the government on the allegations of electoral rigging but have given no electoral reforms.

“The opposition leadership believes that if they win, the elections are free and fair but if someone else wins, they are rigged.”

Shibli said that it was unfortunate that those who were lablelled as facilitators in the killings of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and Benazir Bhutto were now sitting on stage with the PPP leadership.

“Usually, events to mark the death anniversaries are not used to deliver political speeches but they [opposition] utilised the event for political point scoring.”

To a question about internal differences in Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam, he said that the ones who enjoyed a good reputation and status in the party had termed Fazl “selected”.

“Maulana Shirani and Hafiz Hussain Ahmed have stated that Fazl is selected and they are the real leaders of the party.”

Meanwhile, Federal Minister for Science and Technology Chaudhry Fawad Hussain said, “The government is ready to hold dialogue with the Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM) but not with political interns like Maryam and Bilawal Bhutto.”

Prime Minister Imran Khan has already expressed his willingness to come to the negotiating table with the mature leaders of both the PPP and the PML-N, he said.

"The government has already decided parliament as the forum and the electoral reforms as the agenda for talks," he said.

The minister stated that dialogue was not possible with such political interns, who did not know about the country's history that how it was created, and had never read a single book in this regard.

On the PDM rally in Larkana on Sunday, Fawad said it was a total disgrace for both the PPP and the PML-N. “Neither the PPP leaders felt ashamed of inviting the PML-N to attend their meeting nor the latter felt any humiliation in accepting the invitation.”

It was PML-N chief Mian Nawaz Sharif (the right hand of Chief Martial Law Administrator General Ziaul Haq) and family, who had first distributed sweets on the imposition of martial law, and then on the hanging of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, he recalled.

It was "ironic and ridiculous" that the leaders of two rival parties marked the death anniversary of Benazir Bhutto, he added.

The minister said it was a matter of shame that none of the PDM leaders uttered even a single word for the seven soldiers who were martyred in a terrorist attack in Balochistan earlier in the Sunday morning.

Senior PML-N leaders like Miftah Ismail, Muhammad Zubair and even Shahid Khaqan Abbasi were not seen in the Larkana meeting, the minister said.

On Maryam’s tall resignation claims, he said that Shehbaz Sharif and Asif Ali Zardari did not favour such a step. "Only Fazl, Sharif and Maryam are interested in resignations."

(With input from APP)