In a much-welcomed development the government and PTI have indicated willingness to resolve their protracted standoff through resumption of negotiations. Information Minister Pervaiz Rashid told journalists at the National Press Club the other day, "We want dialogue". Indicating his side's keenness to resume the dialogue that ran aground nearly eight weeks ago he added, "We have heard 213 speeches of Imran Khan, so Khan Sahib should be able to spare 21 or 22 minutes for us. ... Our hearts and doors of negotiations are open." PTI leader Arif Alvi, a member of the party's negotiation team, responded positively to the overture, saying "our doors are also open." He rightly pointed out, however, that the invitation should come through proper channels rather than media statements.
In order to create a favourable atmosphere the two sides must also refrain from making disparaging remarks about one another. There was no need for the Information Minister, for instance, to claim that the PTI chairman had prevented his team from continuing the talks, prompting Alvi to retort that PTI negotiators had the same mandate the government team had from its leadership. He went on to remind the minister that at the end of the last meeting the government team head, Senator Ishaq Dar, had said he would get back to the talks after discussing certain points with the Prime Minister, but that he never came back. Since the issues at hand - alleged electoral rigging and electoral reforms - involve delicate matters, leaders of both parties are expected to stay in the loop. What is important at this point is that even though the PTI chief has maintained an inflexible stance on his demand for the PM's resignation - a non-starter - his party's readiness to resume talks raises the hope that it is still possible to find a compromise solution, and end political uncertainty. Politics being the art of the possible there is nothing that cannot be resolved through talks as long as the willingness to do so is there.
We hope the government will soon follow up on the Information Minister's statement with a formal invitation to the PTI team. Both sides must act quickly to lift the political process out of its current state of suspended animation. It may be recalled that when the two sides met for the last time on September 8, the government side had made it plain that the demand for the PM's resignation was non-negotiable, yet the two negotiating teams were reported to have found common ground on most of the other PTI demands. The agreed points should remain valid when they meet again. What had proved to be the most intractable issue, for which Dar had sought time for consultation, related to the terms of reference for the judicial commission that was to be set up to probe allegations of vote rigging. Before he could return with suggestions the PTI threw a spanner in the works by joining PAT's march on the Parliament building, inviting a violent police crackdown. Both the government and the PTI now need to pick up the thread from where they had been left off.
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