ISLAMABAD: After nearly two weeks of deadlock, Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) chief Imran Khan announced to his supporters that he was hearing good news, so he had decided to postpone an “important announcement” until Thursday.

Earlier in the day, the PTI and the government met to iron out the final kinks in their agreement. The meeting was originally scheduled to be held in a local hotel, but was later shifted to the residence of PTI leader Jahangir Tareen.

During his address on Wednesday evening, the PTI chief seemed confident and relaxed. The party had already revealed that the government was willing to concede to all their demands, save the call for the PM’s resignation.

However, in his address on Wednesday night, Mr Khan stuck to his chief demand, insisting that talks could not continue as long as Nawaz Sharif was still prime minister.

He also boasted that the government had offered him the post of deputy prime minister, but he had refused this “political bribe”.

Mr Khan claimed that he had all the evidence necessary to prove rigging in the general elections of 2013 and that he would present them to an independent commission constituted to investigate the issue.

Meanwhile, both the government and the PTI remained tight-lipped about the progress of talks between the two sides. The government team, in fact, avoided speaking to the press altogether and left the venue in an SUV driven by Railways Minister Khawaja Saad Rafique.

Published in Dawn, August 28th, 2014