ISLAMABAD: Despite public pronouncements of their willingness to hold talks to end the political gridlock, the government and protesting Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) are making little headway towards this end.

Instead, both sides appear to have taken extreme positions, resorting to their mainstays for show of strength.

“PTI chairman Imran Khan has repeatedly vetoed talks in his speeches at the D-Chowk and it’s wrong to accuse the government of running away from negotiations,” the government’s mouthpiece Senator Parvez Rashid said when asked if the government had decided against any future contacts with the PTI leaders. “Let the PTI leadership decide the time and venue for talks, I say on the record that the government’s negotiators will meet them,” added Mr Rashid who is also the spokesman for Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif.

The PTI leaders have more or less the same argument in their defence on the stalling of the talks. Talking to Dawn, Dr Arif Alvi, who has represented the PTI in talks with the government, said his party had never closed its door for negotiations and blamed the government for scuttling whatever progress they had made during their over a dozen sittings.

When his attention was drawn towards his party chairman’s increasingly belligerent statements and sticking to the ‘Go Nawaz, go’ slogan, Mr Alvi said: “So far the government has refused to budge even an inch from its stated position and shown no willingness to accept our demand of a meaningful investigation into election results.” At the same time, the government had resorted to a crackdown against PTI workers, he alleged.

After the government’s refusal to listen to the PTI’s genuine demand of a result-oriented election investigation, his party’s leaders were left with the only option of taking their message to the people, Dr Alvi insisted.

Also read: Govt-PTI talks: decision left to leaders of both sides

In background discussions, a senior government functionary said the prime minister, along with other senior ministers, was definitely interested in a negotiated settlement during the first couple of weeks after Imran Khan reached Islamabad with his supporters, but the PTI lost that window of opportunity.

“After suffering from initial jitters, the government has already recovered. Because of the impending visit of the Chinese president in mid-September, we earnestly tried to get the standoff resolved. Now the ball is very much in our court and we will decide how and when to respond.”

He said the prime minister had adjusted himself well to the new situation; secured unconditional support of the parliamentary parties and in the process isolated the protesting PAT-PTI duo. “There are many slums right in the heart of the city. The government has accepted the D-Chowk dwellers as one of them and has decided to move on with its daily routine business,” he quipped when asked whether the protesters would be removed.

On the other hand, a PTI office-bearer said that after the successful rallies in Karachi, Lahore and Mianwali, “we believe Mr Khan is striking a chord with the masses and the party has decided to keep building pressure until the government listens to our demand”.

JIRGA’S EFFORTS: At the same time, the six-member political ‘jirga’ comprising opposition parliamentarians is continuing its efforts to bring the two sides to the negotiating table.

A member of the jirga told Dawn that they would soon meet the prime minister as they had got clearance from PAT and PTI leaders to take the dialogue process forward.

He said the terms of reference of the proposed judicial commission remained the contentious point between the government and the PTI.

In the case of the Pakistan Awami Tehreek, the jirga has proposed resignation of the Punjab chief minister if he was found guilty by a mutually agreed joint investigation team in the Model Town incident.

According to the jirga member, in case of an agreement between the PTI and the government, the PAT was likely to fall in line because its major demand of registration of an FIR against the prime minister, the Punjab chief minister and some ministers had already been fulfilled.

Since the government and the PTI had agreed on setting up a special judicial commission through a presidential ordinance for the election probe, let the members of the commission decide its terms of reference, the member of the jirga suggested as a possible solution.

Published in Dawn, October 4th , 2014