ISLAMABAD: The planned dialogue between the government and Taliban seemed to have received a setback on Monday as two key parties told the National Assembly they were not joining a militant group’s panel of negotiators.

After some embarrassing sarcasm from both friends and foes, the opposition Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) and the government-allied Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam-Fazl gave different reasons for their dissociation two days after the banned Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) named PTI chairman Imran Khan and a JUI-F figure on its five-man panel to negotiate with a four-member government panel.

But the two parties, often perceived by critics of being close to the Taliban’s cause for their strong opposition to calls for a military operation in the Taliban’s main bastion of North Waziristan tribal area, still assured their cooperation in the process set in motion by Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s announcement in the house on Wednesday that he was giving “another chance” to a negotiated settlement to end terrorism in the country.

PTI vice-chairman Shah Mahmood Qureshi said the TTP had not consulted his party while naming its panel and that a meeting of his party’s core committee in Islamabad on Monday decided that its chief would not be a part of the body though it had asked its provincial government in the terrorism-plagued Khyber Pakhtunkhwa to facilitate the process.

JUI-F chief Maulana Fazlur Rehman said his party too would not join the process because it was contrary to a unanimous decision of a multi-party conference convened by him in Islamabad in February last year, whose participants included the then ruling PPP, now ruling PML-N and tribal chieftains, to pursue dialogue with militants through a tribal jirga.

The two parties made the statements after a left-handed compliment from Leader of Opposition Khursheed Ahmed Shah of the PPP in welcoming the nomination of what he called a mature and liberal politician like Imran Khan on the Taliban committee, saying the PTI chief would serve as a “bridge” between the government and the Taliban and “infuse a life in the process”.

Mr Shah reiterated his party’s support for the process as well as its demand to set a timeframe for dialogue, but he regretted the reported Taliban assurance to provide security for the government team if it visited the tribal area, saying this was the job of the government and the Taliban had not right to exercise such a writ.

And then, after the latest PTI position was known, it was the turn of an outspoken PML-N back-bencher, Sheikh Rohale Asghar, to rub Imran Khan, who was not present in the house, asking why he should refrain from his oft-repeated mission to restore peace in the country and saying that Maulana Fazlur Rehman should also feel honoured for a member of his party, Mufti Kifayatullah, named on the Taliban panel, along with the head of his rival JUI-S, Maulana Samiul Haq, Prof Mohammad Ibrahim of PTI-allied Jamaat-i-Islami, and Maulana Abdul Aziz, who led a bloody revolt from Islamabad’s famous Lal Masjd in July 2007 but fled wearing a burqa and his brother, Ghazi Abdul Rashid, was killed in a subsequent military operation.

On a day Islamabad received a substantial rainfall after a long drought, the ruling party failed to end a legislative drought for eight months as it was forced by both the opposition and the JUI-F to defer three key anti-terrorism bills on as already enforced presidential ordinances.

The strongest opposition to two bills seeking amendments to strengthen procedures in the Anti-Terrorism Act of 1997 and the most controversial Protection of Pakistan Bill came from the PTI and the JUI-F on grounds of allegedly being draconian and undermining fundamental rights enshrined in the Constitution while Mr Khursheed Shah asked the government to defer the draft for a day or two to forge a consensus with opposition parties as he said the previous PPP-led government had done with 99 per cent of legislation done in five years of its tenure.

Science and Technology Minister Zahid Hamid, standing in for Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan, initially agreed to put off the Protection of Pakistan Bill, which empowers law-enforcement authorities to shoot terrorism suspects on sight, and one of the two other bills for possible consultations with the opposition parties on Tuesday, but both he and Minister of State for Interior Balighur Rehman insisted on pushing the one seeking to tighten anti-money laundering operations as suggested by a UN task force.

However, after the call for deferment of the first government bills put on the house agenda for the day was later endorsed by the government-allied Pakhtunkhwa Milli Awami party’s chief Mahmood Khan Achakzai, that Chaudhry Nisar, who had arrived in the house to listen some of the heated arguments, agreed to put off the anti-money laundering bill as well for “a day or two”.

While Maulana Fazlur Rehman complained his party had not been consulted despite being a government ally, both Mr Khursheed Shah and Shah Mahmood Qureshi warned the government that if it sought to bulldoze these bills in the 342-seat National Assembly on the strength of its majority, it could fail in the 104-seat Senate where opposition parties formed the majority.

There was no immediate word about when the three bills would be taken up again in the house which is due to conclude its present session on Feb 7.