Govt keeps door ajar as PTI ends talks

Opposition negotiators boycott fourth round

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ISLAMABAD:

The government on Tuesday kept the door for dialogue with the opposition ajar despite the announcement from the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) on Tuesday that the talks process had ended, as its negotiating team did not show up at the Parliament House for a fourth round.

National Assembly Speaker Ayaz Sadiq, who played a crucial role in bringing representatives of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N)-led ruling coalition and the opposition PTI at the negotiations table, had invited both sides for the fourth round of talks on Tuesday.

However, the PTI boycotted the meeting. Later, the government side announced that its negotiation committee would wait until January 31 and if the PTI reversed its decision of ending the talks, the process could resume.

Earlier, PTI Chairman Barrister Gohar Ali Khan, while speaking outside the Adiala Jail after a meeting with the party founder, Imran Khan, announced that negotiations with the government had ended, adding that his party joined the negotiations with open heart, but those could not move forward.

The negotiation between the government and the opposition started on December 23, 2024, with a view to amicably finding a solution to the political and economic issues facing the country, as well as settling the long-standing thorny issues between the two sides.

However, the process hit a snag just after three sittings. The PTI had presented its charter of demands to the government in the third round, which, demanded among other things, the formation of separate judicial commissions on May 9 2023 and November 26, 2024 incidents.

Besides, the judicial commissions, the PTI charter also sought "support" of the federal and provincial governments in bail, sentence suspensions and acquittals of "political prisoners" identified by the PTI. It said that these demands were presented as a "prerequisite to wider negotiations" on other issues.

However, seven days after the third round, the PTI founder abruptly called off the dialogue, on the grounds that the government had not accepted its demands for the commission within a week's time. A day later, Barrister Gohar deviated from the statement and said that Imran had put the talks on hold.

The PTI negotiation team head Omar Ayub, while speaking with the speaker on Monday expressed concerns over the government's use of delaying tactics in addressing the PTI's demands. He insisted that negotiations could not proceed without the formation of the judicial commissions.

In line with their announcements, and despite repeated requests from the speaker, the opposition members did not show up at the talks on Tuesday. The PTI remained adamant that it would only sit across the table with the PML-N-led committee if the judicial commissions were established.

Senator Irfan Siddiqui, the spokesperson for the government's negotiation committee wondered why the PTI called off the talks without waiting for the government's response to its demands. He said that the opposition could have found "an opening" had it come to the fourth round.

Siddiqui said that opinions were solicited from constitutional and legal experts on the PTI's charter of demands. He further stated that the government had decided to withhold its final response for now, adding that its negotiations committee would remain in place until January 31.

Siddiqui admitted that the PTI had practically ended the negotiation process by not attending the fourth round of talks. "The PTI took a unilateral decision; it itself ended the process it had started," he said, adding that if the PTI sat for talks, the government was ready to resume the process.

Siddiqui stressed that throughout the talks process that spanned over five weeks, the government's negotiation committee showed patience, despite the PTI leadership's continued push for civil disobedience movement.

Speaker Ayaz Sadiq also announced that the government committee would remain intact despite the lack of the PTI's participation. He said that the absence of the PTI made the discussions meaningless but "my doors remain open, and I hope the process of talks will proceed".

Barrister Gohar said that PTI's negotiators sat with the government with open heart but unfortunately the negotiations could not move forward. "No negotiations are being held at any other place or at any level," the PTI chairman added.

"We will continue our struggle and protests, including going to the courts. We will meet the opposition parties against the 26th Constitutional Amendment and for an independent judiciary and parliament. If we have any meeting anywhere regarding the negotiations, we will tell everyone."

In a separate statement, PTI Central Information Secretary Sheikh Waqas Akram slammed the government for "scuttling the dialogue" and "blaming the PTI for derailing the process". However, he claimed that the government lacked authority to accept the PTI's demands.

"If the government genuinely desired result-oriented talks, it still holds the key to reviving the dialogue by announcing a powerful judicial commission, comprising senior-most Supreme Court judges and releasing all unlawfully-detained political prisoners, including PTI's founder, forthwith," he said.

On the other hand, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif's political aide, Rana Sanaullah, said that if Imran had chosen to sit with PML-N President Nawaz Sharif for talks, "I assure you that Mian Sahib would have given a positive response".

He stressed that the PTI should have stood by its demands but avoided calling off the negotiation process on the basis of a trivial issues. Now, he said, "we will wait for the PTI until the next elections in 2029."