Islamabad:
The president of the National Assembly, Ayaz Sadiq, once again invited the opposition to sit through the table with the ruling alliance, ensuring the opposition of its full cooperation to maintain negotiations with the government and reaffirm its role as the “custodian of the Chamber”.
Na speaker reiterated his offer months after the government’s opposition conversations failed, saying that dialogue was the only way to resolve political differences. The speaker said he would act as a bridge between both sides to achieve this goal.
Sadiq extended the invitation during a national assembly session when the opposition member and former President Asad Qaiser raised an issue regarding opposition privileges.
He said that the Constitution, the law, the traditions and parliamentary rules were the same for all and their adhesion was essential to strengthen democracy. However, an official statement from the NA Secretariat said that despite its offer, the opposition organized a strike and left the house.
Referring to the arrest of the Indian opposition leader Rahul Gandhi, Sadiq said that even in that case, “production orders” were not issued. He stressed that no forum was greater than the National Assembly and the Senate as a “Great Jirga”, and urged all political forces to present themselves to strengthen Parliament.
Previously, negotiations between the two parties, which began on December 23, 2024, aimed to address political and economic challenges, collapsed after only three sessions. PTI’s demands were presented in the third round as a previous requirement for broader conversations.
However, PTI had canceled the negotiations within a week, claiming that the Government did not meet its conditions of constitution of judicial commissions within seven days. The Government, on the other hand, had accused PTI to move away prematurely from the process without waiting for a formal response “within seven business days.”
Later, the ruling coalition led by PML-N had formally ended its negotiations with PTI’s opposition after the opposition party had rejected the offer of Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif to resume conversations to solve long-standing problems between the two parties.
The Government had officially closed the door of the negotiations with PTI after the abrupt withdrawal of the opposition party of the dialogue process and linking new sessions with the formation of judicial commissions to investigate on May 9, 2023 and November 26, 2024, incidents.
The confirmation of Senator Irfan Siddiqui, the spokesman of the Government’s negotiation committee, expressing repentance by PTI’s decision and emphasizing that the conversations could have provided the opportunity to solve thorny problems if PTI continue the process.
Senator Siddiqui had said that PTI specifically took the names of the founder of PTI Imran Khan and other leaders, including Shah Mehmood Qureshi, Omar Chema, Ijaz Chaudhry, Yasmin Rashid and Mahmood Rashid, and demanded their liberation, saying that PTI wrote these names in their charter of demands, but they said that the government should facilitate their government Liberation