PML-N Senator Irfan Siddiqui said on Tuesday that the negotiation process with the PTI was “practically” at an end after the opposition party skipped fourth round of meetings.
Speaking to the media outside Parliament House after the PTI skipped Tuesday’s meeting, Siddiqui said: “Since they (PTI) didn’t come, the negotiation process has practically ended. However, our [negotiating] committee is still there and it has not been dissolved.”
He continued, “If they can approach the speaker by their deadline of January 31 or they think this door should be opened again and this process should resume then they can contact the speaker and our committee will still sit down and talk to them before the 31st or even after that date we can continue this process.”
“But as far as today is concerned, they decided on their own on the 23rd, five days before the 28th, and unilaterally announced [abandoning the process] giving various reasons for it. “Sometimes they said that first make the commission … then they said that police raided one of their committee member’s house, all of this was baseless and they just wanted to end the process.” He added that PTI must have other priorities, saying: “The process that they started, they themselves have now finished by sabotaging the process.” “We remained focused on our final answer that we won’t share publicly since it had been decided that it was a committee-to-committee matter and they didn’t come,” Siddiqui said, adding that PTI could have shared what their disagreements were in the meeting.
Meanwhile, Sadiq said his doors remained open and expressed hopes that the opposition would hold talks to find a way forward. Speaking to the media regarding the fourth round of talks, Sadiq said: “This committee has come together today. We waited for about 45 minutes for our friends in the opposition to come. “We messaged the secretary to leader of the opposition who said ‘it seems like they won’t be coming to the meeting’. We have it saved.” He added: “We were hoping that negotiations are the only way to proceed”, pointing out that the prime minister formed a negotiating committee the same day PTI Chairman Barrister Gohar made the request.
