No Imran meeting offer received: Abbas

Rejects NA speaker's claim, says neither he nor Achakzai was contacted

ISLAMABAD:

Senate Leader of Opposition Allama Raja Nasir Abbas on Wednesday rejected National Assembly Speaker Ayaz Sadiq's claim that the government offered opposition leaders multiple times to arrange their meeting with jailed PTI founder Imran Khan but they refused.

Talking to the media at Parliament House, Abbas said he strongly rejected the remarks made by the National Assembly speaker in a podcast. "Unfortunately, there are too many lies in Pakistan's politics. Misrepresentation and statements against one's conscience are being made," he said.

He said the government had neither contacted him nor NA Leader of Opposition Mahmood Khan Achakzai. "We are learning through you today that such a statement was made," he said.

Abbas noted that opposition leaders were inside Parliament with access to mobile phones and WhatsApp, questioning why the speaker or other officials could not have contacted them directly. "We were sitting inside Parliament. Was it difficult for the speaker or those people to talk to us?" he asked.

The opposition leader said they had been demanding from the very beginning that a meeting with Imran Khan should be arranged to help address the problems confronting the country.

Abbas also questioned the arrest of lawmakers, asking whether permission had been sought from the National Assembly speaker before the arrests.

"If they were arrested after obtaining permission, then it is an attack on Parliament," he said. "If they were arrested without permission, then they should be released," he added.

He said Parliament was locked while the opposition members were inside, adding that the matter could have been communicated to them either inside Parliament or at the mosque. "They could have come and told us themselves that a meeting with the founder was to be arranged," he said.

Raja Nasir Abbas reiterated that the opposition still wanted a meeting with Imran Khan. "I want to make it clear that no message regarding a meeting with the founder of PTI was conveyed to us," he said. "And if such a message was conveyed to anyone, it did not reach us."

In a private news channel's podcast released on Wednesday, Sadiq recalled an episode in which Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi contacted him while he was travelling to discuss arranging a meeting with PTI founder Imran Khan.