News
January 24, 2025
Imran Calls off Talks ‘Over Govt Failure to Form Judicial Commission’
Islamabad: Pakistan's former Prime Minister Imran Khan called off reconciliatory talks with the government on Thursday, a week after a court handed him a 14-year jail term on graft charges, his party's chairman said.
Aimed at cooling political instability in the South Asian nation, the talks had started late last year ahead of the judgment in the land corruption case against the 72-year-old former cricket star-turned-politician.
The graft case is the largest that Khan faces in terms of financial impropriety. It involves land given by a real estate tycoon to a welfare institution Khan and his wife set up in return for illegal favors.
"Khan has called off negotiations," the party chairman, Gohar Khan, told reporters in comments telecast live by local Geo News TV after he said he met the former premier in jail.
He said Imran Khan conveyed his decision after the expiry of a seven-day deadline he had given to the government to respond to demands he had given last week.
Khan's Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party mainly demands the setting up of two judicial commissions to probe the events that led to his arrest in August 2023, and the protest rallies, including one in 2023, when his supporters rampaged through military offices and installations.
Khan's removal from office in 2022 stoked the instability, which has worsened with his party leading violent protests to urge his release and threatens an economic recovery under a $7 billion IMF bailout. - Reuters
The News adds: ormer prime minister and PTI founder chairman Imran Khan has called off negotiations with the government, citing its failure to form a judicial commission within the agreed seven-day period.
The PTI and the government were engaged in talks to bring down the political temperatures. After two rounds of meetings, the third round was held seven days ago (Jan 16), in which the PTI formally presented its demands in writing. Despite the negotiations, the dialogue process has hardly moved forward on major issues, including the formation of judicial commissions to probe the May 9 and November 26 incidents and the release of PTI prisoners. On Monday, after PTI warned of a boycott of the next round of talks, the government had assured them of a response to their ‘charter of demands’ within seven working days.
Speaking to reporters outside the Adiala jail on Thursday after meeting Imran Khan, Barrister Gohar said the government had promised to form the judicial commissions within seven days, but it failed to do so.
The PTI founder asked for calling off the talks over the government’s failure to form the judicial commissions, he said. He added that the PTI was hopeful of continuing talks, but they had to be called those off “due to non-cooperation from the government”. Negotiations could not move forward if the commission was not announced today (Thursday), he said. He noted, however, that negotiations could resume if a three-judge commission was formed. Quoting the PTI founder, Gohar said the party would continue its struggle under the law and Constitution. “On the instructions of Imran, we will join various opposition parties and struggle together,” he added. To another question, Gohar quoted the PTI founder as saying “we are not waiting for help from any foreign country”.
Earlier, talking to his lawyers, Imran strongly condemned the ‘illegal raid’ on Hamid Raza’s house and seminary and said, “The ‘orderly’ (Ardali) government is pretending to hold talks on one hand and continuing to violate human rights on the other. We are immediately stopping the talks after this raid”.
PTI's announcement of ending the dialogue process follows NA Opposition Leader Omar Ayub's statement on Tuesday in which he termed the negotiations "useless" sans the formation of the judicial commission.
"Constitution of judicial commission is necessary before the fourth round of talks," Ayub said.
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