Prime Minister’s Adviser Rana Sanaullah has said the government has kept the door open for negotiations with the opposition, stressing that all political issues should be resolved through dialogue and that the state cannot be held hostage to force demands. Speaking at a press conference, Sanaullah also defended the government’s counter-terrorism policy and rejected claims that Khyber Pakhtunkhwa was being excluded from consultations. His remarks came amid the PTI’s ongoing long march towards Islamabad, which began after government-opposition negotiations reached a deadlock.

Sanaullah said Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif had once again called upon the opposition to sit for talks and resolve all issues at the negotiating table. He said negotiations could not be used as a tactic to force demands by holding the state hostage, adding that neither the law, the Constitution nor political ethics permit personal or political agendas to take precedence over national interests. The adviser said the PTI had consistently pursued what he described as an agenda of political instability. He said the party had maintained this objective since gaining political prominence in 2011 and had sought to introduce political intolerance, hatred and abusive language into the political environment.

According to Sanaullah, political instability began in 2014, when the PTI launched a march on Islamabad and staged a 126-day sit-in. He said laying siege to Islamabad had remained a key tactic of the PTI and claimed that the party had continued to advance its political agenda through such actions. Sanaullah said the PTI had achieved its objectives to a significant extent, while political tolerance had previously been a hallmark of Pakistani politics. Sanaullah said that since October 4, the PTI had been unable to gather more than a few thousand people at any point during the long march.

He alleged that all resources of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government were being used for the march. He also claimed that millions of rupees had been collected for camps, but there was not even a mat available for people to sleep on. The adviser said that, on one side, there were the bodies of soldiers and officers martyred in the war against terrorism, while on the other, the KP government was beating drums and encouraging people to march on Islamabad. He added that a large number of officers and soldiers martyred in the fight against terrorism belonged to Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

Credit: Independent News Pakistan (INP)