RAWALPINDI: Minister for Aviation Ghulam Sarwar Khan on Saturday said the government was ready to hold talks with the opposition but not at the cost of corruption cases.

Addressing a press conference, he said he had offered talks to the opposition on behalf of Prime Minister Imran Khan on national and international issues.

“The talks with the opposition will focus on Kashmir issue and war threats from India.” He said the government was also ready to negotiate with the opposition on election reforms.

He warned the opposition not to take the government’s offer for negotiations as its weakness.

The minister said the PPP would not resign from assemblies, besides a large number of PML-N members had differences with its leadership over resignation.

“I don’t know about the Punjab Assembly but in the National Assembly, many PML-N legislators have conveyed their reservations over their party leadership’s stance on resignations,” he added.

He said Prime Minister Khan had already announced to go to by-elections if the opposition resigned from parliament.

He said the opposition would not get anything from its public meetings and rallies except causing spread of Covid-19 in the country.

“Prime Minister Imran Khan has appealed to the opposition to postpone rallies and processions for two or three months in the public interest in view of the second wave of coronavirus,” he said.

The minister said the government would take strict action against the organisers of public meetings and leaders of political parties if they violated the standard operating procedures (SOPs) and guidelines issued to prevent the spread of coronavirus.

The minister said the country was facing war threats from India. “A high alert is in everyone’s knowledge, India wants to destabilise the country. India is behind terrorism in Pakistan,” he said.

“India wants to make us barren by stopping the water of our rivers but instead of taking these issues seriously, the PDM is doing politics of protest.”

Terrorism is not an issue of a single party but it is problem of all the people of the country. He said previous governments were responsible for the country’s economic woes as they failed to give policies of public interest.

With regard to a decision allowing British Virgin Atlantic to operate its flights to Pakistan, the minister said under the agreement with the United Kingdom both the countries will operate their respective airlines to each other countries.

Talks are underway with European Union Aviation Safety Agency to lift the ban on Pakistan’s flights to EU countries. The minister expressed the hope that the ban would soon be lifted.

Published in Dawn, December 13th, 2020