Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Secretary General Salman Akram Raja said on Monday that negotiations with the government had failed primarily over the party’s demand for access to its jailed founder Imran Khan, insisting that PTI could not make major decisions without consulting him.
Speaking at a press conference alongside other PTI leaders, Raja said one of the party’s key demands was for its representatives to be allowed to meet Imran.
“We have two major demands. One is that we should be allowed to meet the PTI founder,” he said, adding that the party would not take decisions without consulting him.
Raja said the two sides had also failed to agree on allowing Imran’s personal physician, Dr Faisal Sultan, to be part of a medical panel. Meetings between Imran, his family and his personal doctor remained a major concern for PTI, he added.
He said the party had not closed the door to further dialogue, despite two rounds of negotiations ending without an agreement.
Raja identified the security situation in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa as PTI’s other major concern, saying the party wanted decisions on counterterrorism and the tribal districts to be made through consultation with all relevant stakeholders.
He referred to a peace jirga in K-P involving political parties and tribal elders, arguing that decisions affecting the region could not effectively be made without consulting those directly involved.
Raja said PTI stood by K-P Chief Minister Sohail Afridi’s position that all stakeholders should be consulted on decisions concerning the province.
According to Raja, the two sides had come close to resolving their differences during negotiations before the situation changed unexpectedly. He accused the government committee of rejecting PTI’s demands concerning access to personal physicians and a mutually agreed course of action.
He said Afridi launched PTI’s long march after the negotiations failed, while stressing that the party intended its mobilisation to remain peaceful.
“We are not armed people,” Raja said, adding that PTI would continue its campaign for “love, respect, the rule of law and the Constitution, and peace.”