Opposition to discuss only LFO: Positive approach hoped
By Ahmad Hassan
ISLAMABAD, April 23: The talks between Prime Minister Mir Zafarullah Khan Jamali and the opposition parties will start after Maghrib prayers on Friday and continue the next day, official sources said.
The prime minister will be assisted by his political advisers and top party leaders and the opposition parties will hold meetings in groups which have not yet been finalised.
No set agenda has been given while extending the invitation as in most of the cases the prime minister has rang up the leaders of the concerned parliamentary groups or chiefs of the parties.
The majority of the opposition parties who have received the invitation expect that the talks will revolve around the most contentious issue of the Legal Framework Order (LFO).
However, skeptics say that the real agenda of talks will be provided to the participants at the time the talks start.
The Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal (MMA) which has been invited to the talks in the first round has resolved not to talk on any other question but the LFO.
The MMA leadership, according to insiders, has informally discussed the issue on way back from Muzaffarabad on Wednesday and expressing its concern over the lack of clear agenda of talks, has decided that it will enter into talks only on the LFO.
Makhdoom Amin Fahim, president and parliamentary leader of the People’s Party Parliamentarians (PPP), who announced his party’s acceptance of the invitation, told a news conference that the party had neither received any written invitation, so far, nor any agenda of the talks was given in black and white.
Liaquat Baloch, deputy secretary-general and a member of MMA’s negotiation team, told Dawn that in his telephonic invitation Prime Minister Jamali had told him that the talks were sought on the most contentious issue of the LFO.
Replying to a question whether the combined opposition would insist on holding talks with the government together, Mr Baloch said MMA believed that collective or individual talks did not make much of a difference when there was a unity of thinking and the whole opposition was combined on one point agenda of the LFO.
He said the religio-political alliance, despite reservations about the limited authority of the government negotiating team, was entering into dialogue with the hope of a breakthrough.
The alliance, he said, had appreciated the gesture that Mr Jamali had shown during the times of national crises.
Senator Farhatullah Babar, spokesman of the PPP, said the party was going into talks with a positive approach and would try to reconcile the contentious LFO issue.
He said there could be no other topic for discussion between the government and the opposition but the most contentious issue of the LFO.
In the meantime, Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz secretary information Siddiqul Farooq said there could be no talk on any other issue but the most important issue of the LFO, and the combined opposition had decided to enter into talks with the government with a positive approach.
He said the main objective of the combined opposition in protesting on the floor of the parliament and now entering into dialogue with the government was the revival of the same constitution which was in vogue on Oct 12, 1999, as also for upholding the supremacy of the parliament.
