ISLAMABAD: The federal government has ruled out the release of incarcerated Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) founder Imran Khan via “executive order” with the former ruling party reiterating the January 31 “cut-off date” for the fulfilment of its demands.
“Talks will only be successful when there is justice for all,” PTI Secretary-General Salman Akram Raja said while speaking to a private news channel on Tuesday.
He reiterated the PTI’s demands to release “political prisoners”, including Imran, and constitute a judicial commission to probe the events of May 9, 2023, and Nov 26 crackdown on PTI protesters. “If these demands are not met…we will then devise a future course of action,” he added.
In response to a question, Raja noted that January 31 was the “cut-off date” for negotiations and after that, his party would chalk out the next course of action.
The statement came hours after the embattled former ruling party and the government finally held their second round of dialogue, which the National Assembly Speaker Ayaz Sadiq said was held in a cordial environment.
“In the last meeting we decided that PTI would present its charter of demands, but the opposition demanded another meeting with [PTI founder] Imran Khan to chalk out the list of demands and the next meeting will be held next week, hopefully,” Sadiq said while talking to journalists after the conclusion of the second round.
“The conclusion of the talks was that all of the participants decided to sit together for the betterment of Pakistan [and] to talk about issues such as economy, terrorism and any other,” he added.
The meeting was chaired by the NA Speaker in the Parliament House’s Constitution Committee Room as he was facilitating and leading the negotiations between the treasury and the opposition.
Meanwhile, PM’s aide on political affairs, Rana Sanaullah welcomed “positive statements” of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Chief Minister Ali Amin Gandapur and Raja during today’s meeting.
“PTI committee wanted to seek guidance from its founder,” he said while speaking on Geo News programme ‘Aaj Shahzeb Khanzada Kay Sath’, noting that the government team did not put any conditions for negotiations.
Referring to PTI’s demand to release the PTI founder, Sanaullah said that they would question the former ruling party on how such a demand can be tabled.
In response to a question, the PML-N leader said that the establishment neither asked his party to hold negotiations nor did it stop them. “Even ISPR DG said the political parties should talk to each other,” he added.
Furthermore, he rejected the notion of the government offering to release jailed Imran, saying that no one had issued statements about the PTI founder being released in 15 days.
Joint declaration
Reading out the joint declaration of the second round of talks earlier in the day, Senator Irfan Siddiqui said that PTI’s Ayub and others presented their point of view in detail.
“They [PTI] demanded the release of incarcerated Imran Khan and their workers and formation of judicial commission on the events of May 9, 2023 and Nov 26,” he said.
Furthermore, he said, that the opposition wanted to meet the incarcerated PTI founder for consultation to chalk out the “charter of demands”. “They [PTI] said Imran had allowed to start this negotiation process… in a bid to continue the process in a positive manner, Imran’s guidance is necessary,” he added.
Siddiqui noted that the opposition agreed to table the charter of demand in written form after consulting the party founder. During the meeting, he said, the government has no objection to the PTI committee meeting the jailed founder.
“It was agreed that the date for the third round of talks will be announced after the PTI committee meets Imran,” he concluded.
