ISLAMABAD: PML-N Senator Irfan Siddiqui said that the negotiation process with the PTI was “practically” at an end after it skipped today’s fourth round of meetings while former premier Imran Khan blasted the lack of action on the commissions demanded by the party as a “sign of deceit”.
Talks between the government and the PTI commenced in the last week of December to bring down political temperatures, but despite weeks of negotiations, the dialogue process stalled on major issues — the formation of two judicial commissions and the release of PTI prisoners.
Senator Siddiqui, the government committee’s spokesperson, had indicated a day ago of ending the dialogue if the opposition skipped today’s moot after the PTI called off talks with the government last week, citing a delay in the latter’s response to its demands presented in the third meeting.
Speaking to the media today outside Parliament House after the PTI skipped today’s meeting, Siddiqui said: “Since they (PTI) didn’t come, the negotiation process has practically ended. However, our [negotiating] committee is still there and it has not been dissolved.”
He continued, “If they can approach the speaker by their deadline of January 31 or they think this door should be opened again and this process should resume then they can contact the speaker and our committee will still sit down and talk to them before the 31st or even after that date we can continue this process.”
“But as far as today is concerned, they decided on their own on the 23rd, five days before the 28th, and unilaterally announced [abandoning the process] giving various reasons for it.
“Sometimes they said that first make the commission … then they said that police raided one of their committee member’s house, all of this was baseless and they just wanted to end the process.”
Siddiqui added that the government “took this process forward with a lot of patience as the other side called for civil disobedience … and did very scary tweets that included attacks on the armed forces, the prime minister was abused but we tolerated that”, adding that the onus was on the other side now to approach the speaker to restart the process.
