Pakistan: PM Shehbaz Sharif Forms Committee To Hold Talks With Imran Khan, PTI Over Azadi Rally

The focus of the negotiations by the government will be on maintaining law and order situation while also holding a political discourse regarding the PTI march.

Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif

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New Delhi: Pakistan government formed a committee under the directives of Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif to hold talks with the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) and former PM Imran Khan in the light of the party's ongoing Haqeeqi Azadi march.

The committee will be headed by Interior Minister Rana Sanaullah and will have at least nine members, including Ayaz Sadiq (PML-N), Khawaja Saad Rafiq (PML-N), Marriyum Aurangzeb (Information Minister), Qamar Zaman Kaira (PPP), Khalid Maqbool Siddiqui (MQM-P), Mian Iftikhar (ANP), Maulana Asad Mehmoud (JUI-F).

The primary objective of the committee is to negotiate with former prime minister Imran Khan who launched the Haqeeqi Azadi march on October 28 from Lahore to Islamabad, saying that the goal of the rally was to prevent “foreign puppets” from running the country and not to advance “personal or political” goals.

The focus of the negotiations by the government will be on maintaining law and order situation while also holding a political discourse regarding the PTI march.

As per PM Shehbaz Sharif’s directives, all talks regarding the long march are to be done through the committee.

“Our doors are always open for negotiations. We are democratic people, ready to talk. However, we will not allow anyone to take the law into their hands,” a report by The Express Tribune quoted the PM as saying.

It is to be noted that Imran Khan’s long-standing demand that the current government call early elections is being considered the impetus behind the march.

The 70-year-old leader is leading the rally for the second time. A similar rally that Imran Khan had organized earlier in May had ended violently and in bloodshed after police and PTI protesters battled in numerous places.

According to reports, the Azadi rally will arrive in Islamabad on November 4 after travelling through the cities of Kamonki, Gujranwala, Daska, Sumbrial, Lala Musa, Khariyan, Gujjar Khan, and Rawalpindi.