NOWSHERA: Central general secretary of the Awami National Party Mian Iftikhar Hussain on Wednesday said a multiparty conference against the government would be called soon after Eidul Azha holidays were over, while the opposition parties would march on Islamabad by the end of the year.

Mr Hussain told reporters at his residence here that the multiparty conference would be called by JUI-Fazl chief Maulana Fazlur Rehman to decide about the long march schedule, which would continue until the removal of the PTI government.

He said the government had miserably failed to deliver.

The ANP leader criticised the ‘partial’ accountability and said the arrest of PPP leader Faryal Talpur and PML-N leader Maryam Nawaz had exposed the government’s politics of revenge against opposition.

He said the government should form a parliamentary committee consisting of all political parties on the Kashmir issue especially after the illegal Indian annexation move and that it should raise the issue internationally.

“The government should pressure the Modi government through the UN Security Council and friendly countries to reverse the occupied Kashmir’s annexation,” he said. Mr Hussain said the ANP leaders and workers didn’t celebrate Eid to protest the Aug 12, 1948, massacre in Babara village of Charsadda.

“We will celebrate Eid after getting real independence,” he said.

The ANP leader said he hadn’t seen the PTI-like coward government in the past as it was frightened by even own shadow.

He said the ruling PTI had failed on both internal and external fronts.

Mr Hussain said the arrest of opposition leaders was meant to divert the people’s attention from escalating inflation and Kashmir issue.

He said the rulers would face the same ill treatment, which the opposition leaders were being subjected to.

The ANP leader said the government had disappointed China over the CPEC project on the US instructions.

He said China was against India move on Ladakh issue but not on Kashmir annexation. “Pakistan seems to be isolated on Kashmiri issue at International level,” he said.

Published in Dawn, August 15th, 2019