Bilawal woos Fazl for talks with PTI

ISLAMABAD:

Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto Zardari met with PDM President Maulana Fazlur Rehman on Wednesday in an effort to build a consensus among the ruling coalition on holding negotiations with the opposition PTI.

However, according to sources familiar with the talks in Dera Ismail Khan, Fazl refused to engage with PTI Chairman Imran Khan, saying that such talks would not yield a positive result. However, he sought time from the PPP chairman to consult his party on the matter.

Bilawal, along with a delegation comprising Qamar Zaman Kaira and Faisal Karim Kundi, offered condolence on the demise of Mufti Abdul Shakoor. Later, he conveyed a special message of former president Asif Zardari to Fazl.

According to the sources, Bilawal stressed the need for holding negotiations with the PTI. They added that Fazl refrained from giving an immediate answer and expressed his lack of trust in Imran Khan.

“He [Fazl] questioned who would guarantee that Imran would not renege on his promises,” a source quoted Fazl as telling Bilawal. Fazl said that the PTI had destroyed Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa during its 10-year rule in the province.

Bilawal replied that the doors of negotiations should always be kept open in politics, stressing that talks were the “solution to all crises in a democracy”. He impressed upon Fazl to reconsider his stance.

On Bilawal’s insistence, Fazl sought time for consultation with his party, the JUI-F. He “promised” to inform Bilawal about his decision after consulting with the party, according to the sources.

The sources further said the two leaders agreed that the decision to take the country out of the current crises through political dialogue would be “unanimous”. In this regard, the sources added, a meeting of the coalition parties would be convened after Eidul Fitr.

The meeting stressed the need for sustainable democracy and the positive constitutional role of the institutions. The geopolitical situation of the country, especially the challenges facing the country on internal and external fronts, was also discussed.

Besides, the performance of the PDM government during the last year and the steps to remedy the damages caused to the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) and the Gwadar port projects during the PTI were also reviewed.

The meeting between Bilawal and Fazl came a day after a huddle of the government allies at the Prime Minister House the other day, ended without reaching any consensus on the issue of holding negotiations with the PTI.

Bilawal led a three-member delegation of the PPP for his meeting with Fazl. The delegation included Qamar Zaman Kaira and Faisal Karim Kundi. Later, Bilawal met with Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and apprised him of his talks with Fazl.

The ongoing political and legal impasse intensified after the PTI chairman dissolved both the Punjab and Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa assemblies in January this year in a bid to force the incumbent government to hold early elections.

However, the coalition government have been reluctant to cave into Imran’s demand. In order to find a way out of the crisis, the PPP has suggested the coalition hold talks with the PTI on the issue of elections.

During the meeting at the Prime Minister House, Bilawal insisted on holding the political dialogue, stressing that closing the doors on talks was not only against his party’s principles but also an undemocratic and non-political move.

Officials privy to the developments claimed that the MQM-P, BNP-M, BAP’s Khalid Magsi, PML-Q’s Chaudhry Salik Hussain, NDM’s Mohsin Dawar and others backed Bilawal’s stance.

However, the JUI-F opposed the talks with the PTI, saying that Imran Khan was not a “political force”. Shahzain Bugti of the Jamhoori Watan Party opined that he was not against the dialogue but Imran could not be trusted.

Soon after the media started reporting about the stance of different parties in the ruling coalition’s meeting, Information Minister Marriyum Aurangzeb in a statement refuted all such “sources-based speculations” in the media.

(WITH INPUT FROM APP)