Pakistan political turmoil: Bilawal Bhutto’s PPP party says open to talk with Imran Khan

The Pakistan Peoples Party-led by Bilawal Bhutto Zardari has said that it is ready to talk with jailed former prime minister Imran Khan if the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) founder is willing to engage, amidst heightened political instability in the cash-strapped country.

“It is being said that the PTI founder is ready to talk. If Imran Khan is ready to talk then that’s a positive thing,” Senior PPP leader Khurshid Shah said while speaking to the media in Quetta, the provincial capital of Balochistan.

Shah welcomed the possibility of talks as a positive development.

“President Asif Ali Zardari has always tried to solve problems through negotiations, and the PPP would play its role if needed,” Shah was quoted as saying by the Express Tribune newspaper.

The PPP’s willingness to engage with Khan’s party comes amid heightened political instability, following the PTI’s hard-line stance against the incumbent Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) led government.

The PPP, along with the Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan (MQM-P) and other allies, supports the PML-N of Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif. The two former rivals recently witnessed a war of words. The ruling PML-N accepted all the demands of PPP over the federal budget and allocation of development funds.

Since Khan’s ouster through a vote of no confidence in 2022, the PTI has maintained a strong opposition to the PPP-PML-N alliance.

Political tensions increased after the February 8 elections, which saw the two parties forming a coalition government in the Centre.

Calls for reconciliation have been growing from various societal and political quarters, urging the PTI to negotiate with the government.

Khan’s party had previously rejected talks with what it termed the “Form-47 government,” instead showing a preference for dialogue with the military establishment.

In April, PTI’s Shehryar Afridi indicated a preference for negotiations with Army chief Gen Asim Munir and the Director General of Inter-Services Intelligence (DG ISI).

Subsequently, PTI Secretary General Omar Ayub mentioned that Imran Khan had assigned significant responsibility to former President Dr Arif Alvi.

Last month, PTI Chairman Barrister Gohar confirmed that Khan had approved discussions with the government.

Similarly, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Chief Minister Ali Amin Gandapur and Khan’s sister Aleema Khan called for state institutions to remain neutral for the country’s progress.

Meanwhile, the government too has called on the Khan-founded party to come to the table and hold talks.

“If you want to remove us then do it. You don’t want to resolve issues but to further complicate them. You should do talks instead of destroying everything,” Federal Minister for Petroleum Dr Musadik Malik said last week.

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