Islamabad: Jailed former prime minister Imran Khan has sought a meeting with his negotiating team that is in talks with the Pakistan government saying it will make the process “meaningful.” Khan, 72, founder of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), also put forth the demands of his party and said if the government agrees, he will postpone the civil disobedience movement announced earlier.
He nominated Sahibzada Mohammad Hamid Raza, chairman of PTI alliance partner Sunni Ittehad Council (SIC), as the spokesperson for his party’s negotiation committee. A member of the National Assembly, Raza is also a chairman of the National Assembly Standing Committee on Human Rights. The PTI leader's announcement came during a meeting with his lawyers' team on Tuesday in Rawalpindi's Adiala Jail, where he has been incarcerated since last year.
“The efforts of the party’s negotiation committee are a good thing. To make the negotiation process meaningful, it is important that I meet with my nominated negotiation team so that I can have a proper understanding of the issues,” Khan said in a post on X after that meeting. Earlier on Monday, the Pakistan government and Khan's party, in their maiden meeting, agreed to continue talks to address contentious issues, including Khan's release from jail.
The long-anticipated talks between the committees representing the government and the PTI were chaired by the National Assembly (NA) Speaker Ayaz Sadiq, who had last week announced to facilitate the two sides in their effort to defuse the prevailing political tension. The Monday's meeting took place a day after the Shehbaz Sharif-led Pakistan government was prompted to form a negotiation committee to start formal talks with Khan's PTI after it threatened to give a call for civil disobedience.
After nominating Raza as the spokesperson for the PTI’s negotiation process, Khan also forwarded demands of his party for the success of negotiations with the government. These include the release of all under-trial political prisoners of his party and the formation of a judicial commission to probe the events on May 9, 2023 and November 26 this year.
“If these demands are implemented, we will postpone the civil disobedience movement. But I fear that the government will try to sideline our demands for investigations of May 9 last year and November 26, but we will not allow that to happen,” he said. Khan also rejected the military court as “unconstitutional” and added that the decision by these courts were tarnishing Pakistan's reputation in the international world, and such inhumane actions may even lead to economic sanctions for the country.
He also said that by the decision of the military court, the constitutional bench set up after an amendment in the constitution in October this year became irrelevant and by allowing the army led courts to announce judgment of trial of civilian, the judiciary indirectly acknowledged the political engineering being done to harm his PTI party.
“After the 26th Constitutional Amendment, the judiciary has been completely crippled. The establishment of the Constitutional Bench and its decisions are tantamount to embarrassing the Supreme Court,” he added. Khan had announced yet another round of protest in the form of a civil disobedience movement this time, asking the Pakistani diaspora to boycott remittances if his demands are not met by Sunday (December 22).
“We will appeal to Pakistanis living abroad that the situation in Pakistan is evident to you, democracy, the judiciary, and the media has been stifled, and a period of oppression and fascism is ongoing. Therefore, we urge you to start the boycott of remittances,” Khan had announced on December 19.
After Khan was arrested in an accountability case in 2023, hundreds and thousands of his followers and workers of his party vandalised a dozen military installations, including the Jinnah House (Lahore Corps Commander House), Mianwali Air Base and the ISI building in Faisalabad on May 9. The Army headquarters (GHQ) in Rawalpindi too was attacked by the mob, for the first time, last year.
Khan's party had launched a protest march earlier in the year and the latest was on November 26 when police had arrested hundreds of PTI supporters participating in the protest march to the capital, Islamabad, and a planned sit-in demonstration.
