Asif, Tarar target PTI after talks stall

Defence minister accuses Imran Khan of bringing terrorism to K-P

ISLAMABAD':

Defence Minister Khawaja Asif and Information Minister Attaullah Tarar on Sunday fired fresh salvoes at the PTI over the failure of government-opposition talks, accusing the party of adopting double standards on terrorism and using calls for consultation as a delaying tactic.

The exchange followed marathon government-opposition talks over PTI's planned long march, which ended in deadlock in the early hours of Sunday. Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Chief Minister Sohail Afridi had said the PTI-TTAP side wanted counter-terrorism measures in K-P to be agreed jointly by the federal and provincial governments after consultation with political parties and other stakeholders.

The breakdown in negotiations produced competing accounts from the government and opposition over what had prevented an agreement, with the main disagreement centred on counter-terrorism policy in K-P.

Responding to Afridi's post on X, in which the CM Afridi said the talks had failed because the government had not agreed to jointly formulate a counter-terrorism policy for K-P with the provincial government and other political stakeholders, Tarar said PTI's position on consultation had "outlived its life in the past three years".

"PTI's lame old excuse that all parties should have been consulted has outlived its life in the past three years," Tarar said. "Federal government did exactly that but you never responded to our proposals."

He said the K-P government had only recently begun responding to federal calls for a joint mechanism to fight terrorism because it was "politically weak" and accused it of doing so to protect its political standing in the province.

In a post on X, the defence minister questioned PTI leaders who, he said, spoke about innocent victims in the province but did not visit the families of civilians killed in terrorist attacks.

"You talk about the innocent martyrs of your province, but leave aside the military martyrs - you are even refusing to take ownership of the civilian martyrs. Tell us, have you gone to the home of even a single civilian martyr to offer condolences?"

Asif accused PTI founder Imran Khan of bringing terrorism to K-P and supporting the settlement of terrorists in the province, saying the party's speeches in the provincial assembly and its media record were evidence of this.

"This terrorism was brought to K-P by their leader Imran. He was the biggest supporter of settling them in K-P. The record of assembly speeches and the media bears witness to this."

He challenged PTI leaders to debate the issue with him on television.

Asif also accused successive K-P chief ministers of attacking the federal government after PTI lost power at the Centre, while separately referring to the May 9 events.