LAHORE, Aug 29: The committee of the PML-Q and the MMA on the LFO is trying to find a “political solution” to the contentious issues without going into constitutional niceties, ruling party negotiators Senator S.M. Zafar said on Friday.

Speaking to Dawn, he said more rounds of talks would be held to hammer out some understanding. However, he said no date had been set for the next parleys.

A former law minister, Mr Zafar said that it was a breakthrough that the number of such issues had been reduced to one fourth of what the LFO actually deals with and procedure to formalize the understanding between the two sides had also been agreed upon.

He said a confusion that kept on erupting about negotiations going on between the government and the MMA could be set at rest if the objective of the talks was understood by those interested in making them a success.

The main objectives of the talks, he said, was to make effort to see that parliament was able to perform its legislative functions and as well as those concerning good governance. Another target was finding a political solution to the LFO controversy without going into the constitutional niceties.

He said during the entire negotiations the unambiguous impression that he had received was that there was a keen desire to have the parliament operative and functional in the real sense.

“This is a heartening premises which encouraged me to deal with the second issue with some ease”.

Mr Zafar said the first major breakthrough was that the contentions were reduced to seven items whereas the LFO had introduced 29 amendments.

The second forward step was that it was mutually agreed between the government and the MMA that in case of achieving a consensus on seven contentious issues, the settlement would be formalized by duplicating and applying the same procedure with necessary adaption which was followed for the eighth amendment.

“This amounts to saying that procedural matters are no longer an irritant”.

This, he said, was a sign of hope that the remaining issues would also be tackled.

He said on certain issues, middle course solutions were being discussed.

The PML-Q leader said it was because of these developments that MMA leaders Hafiz Husain Ahmed and Liaquat Baloch had sounded a note of optimism.

Mr Zafar said: “We can’t lose any more time. I’ll like to remind ourselves, those in power and opposition and the media, that delay in solving constitutional issues has harmed us in the past and we can’t afford to repeat the same mistakes”.