President of Pakistan Peoples Party Parliamentarians (PPP-P) Asif Ali Zardari has sent invitations to heads of political parties for his party's multiparty conference, scheduled to be held here on March 4 (Saturday) at Zardari House. Former president Asif Ali Zardari on Thursday presided over a party meeting to review arrangements and finalise agenda of the conference at Zardari House on Thursday.
The PPP leaders, including Nayyer Hussain Bokhari, Chaudhry Manzoor, Farhatullah Babar, Mustafa Nawaz Khokhar, Dr Qayyum Soomro, Noor Alam and Sardar Ali, were present in the meeting. Mr Zardari, who arrived in Islamabad after around one-and-a-half years, will stay here for around two weeks, PPPP sources said. This is his first visit to Islamabad since he made a hard-hitting speech in which he lashed out at the military establishment for overstepping its jurisdiction, back in June 2015.
The invitation letter sent to the political parties says: "As you are aware that country is faced with a number of critical issues, implementation of National Action Plan (NAP) and, revival of military courts being on the top that require brainstorming by political parties." The proposed agenda of the multiparty conference is given as: what are the lessons learnt after implementation on the NAP during the last two years?; (ii) whether or not military courts should be revived and if revived, what should be the necessary parameters for their revival?; (iii) implementations on Fata reforms as part of NAP as well as discussion on various aspects of proposed reforms, including ethnic profiling; (iv) and any other item with permission.
PPPP Secretary General Farhatullah Babar told media persons that a consensus about military courts would be evolved in the multiparty moot. He said that Mr Zardari during his long stay in Islamabad will hold meetings with the leaders of various political parties, besides visiting different parts of the country. Senate's former chairman Syed Nayyer Hussain Bokhari said that Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) has not been invited in the conference as the PML-N government showed non-seriousness on the 21st Constitutional Amendment.
He said that the government should have called All Parties Conference (APC) on the issue of extending the tenure of military courts. "The government has been avoiding calling an APC as it can neither implement NAP nor act upon the military courts' decisions," he opined.