‘End long march, sit-ins and we will talk’: PM Shehbaz

Islamabad
Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif on Tuesday renewed an offer of talks to Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), saying the government was prepared to engage with the opposition if the party ended its long march and sit-ins.
“End your long march. If you end it, then we will certainly sit with you and talk. So that Pakistan moves forward with mutual courage, hard work, trust and meditation,” PM Shehbaz said at the groundbreaking ceremony for the Kashmir Chowk Underpass in Islamabad.
The statement came amid heightened political tensions in the country as Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf’s (PTI) long march reached Kohat. Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Chief Minister Sohail Afridi is leading the convoy, which began its march towards Islamabad on Sunday to demand the release of party founder Imran Khan and press the government over what PTI describes as broader political and constitutional grievances. The convoy is currently in Kohat after travelling through Lakki Marwat and Karak, and is expected to depart for Peshawar later today as the party continues its phased mobilisation towards the federal capital.
In his speech today, the prime minister said the government had decided to engage in dialogue after consultation and had held two days of talks between its representatives and the opposition in the chamber of National Assembly Speaker Ayaz Sadiq.
“There was a lot of discussion, and there was every hope that, God willing, these talks would reach their desired conclusion,” he said. “But unfortunately, that did not happen.”
The prime minister said that at the last moment, “they not only demanded changes to something that had already been prepared, but their only objective was that these talks should somehow not succeed.”
“There is no doubt that the first target of this sit-in and long-march politics will be your economy. If your worker or engineer does not reach the factory, manufacturing site or office on time, whose loss is it? It is the loss of the nation and the country,” he said.
PM Shehbaz said the government had spent around a year and a half working to stabilise the economy.