• Rana Sanaullah rejects PTI claim of exclusion from counterterrorism policymaking
• Defends stance on terrorist threats emanating from Afghanistan
• Kh Asif accuses KP govt of ‘criminal indifference’ to terrorism
ISLAMABAD: Adviser to the Prime Minister on Political Affairs Rana Sanaullah said on Wednesday that the door remained open for talks with the main opposition PTI but stressed that the party could not hold the government “hostage” to its demands.
Talking to the media, Mr Sanaullah said the government would not allow the opposition to use dialogue as a tool to make political demands.
“The doors for talks are open,” he said, recalling Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif’s remarks a day earlier urging the PTI leadership to sit down with the government and abandon its protest plans.
However, he said negotiations could not be used to strong-arm the government. The PML-N leader accused the PTI of obstructing efforts for peace and lamented a growing culture of intolerance and “below-the-belt” politics.
Hours-long negotiations between the government and opposition during a second round of talks ended in deadlock on Sunday. The meeting at Parliament House began on Saturday afternoon and continued into the early hours of Sunday. Discussions focused on the PTI’s planned Oct 4 march to Islamabad.
After the talks collapsed, Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi accused Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Chief Minister Sohail Afridi of “sabotaging” the negotiations by changing the draft of an agreement after points had already been settled.
However, PTI leaders said reconciliation with the government was not possible without involving incarcerated party founder Imran Khan in the dialogue process.
They also said the talks failed because the government was unwilling to pursue a collective strategy against terrorism.
Mr Sanaullah rejected the PTI’s claim that it was being excluded from decisions on the Centre’s counterterrorism policy as “completely wrong” and “misleading”.
He said the reasons for the deadlock had been misrepresented and maintained that the counterterrorism policy was already being implemented through daily intelligence-based operations (IBOs), which he said were producing “huge success”. He also claimed the PTI opposed such operations.
In June 2024, the government announced a reinvigorated “Operation Azm-i-Istehkam” but, following criticism, clarified that it would involve intensifying ongoing IBOs and later rebranded it as “Vision Azm-i-Istehkam”.
Mr Sanaullah said the armed forces and law enforcement agencies were making sacrifices to sustain these operations.
He also rejected claims that fresh military operations would lead to large-scale displacement, saying the ongoing IBOs would continue under the existing counterterrorism policy.
‘Politics over national interest’
Speaking about tensions between Pakistan and Afghanistan, Mr Sanaullah said Islamabad had been “fair” in demanding that Afghan territory not be used for terrorist attacks against Pakistan.
He said that during several rounds of talks, the Afghan interim government had accepted as valid evidence presented by Pakistan regarding attacks emanating from Afghanistan, but it had declined to guarantee that its territory would not be used for terrorism against Pakistan.
“Pakistan’s policy is that it has the right to neutralise training camps or any activity on Afghan land that could cause terrorism in Pakistan later on,” Mr Sanaullah said, adding that the policy was based on Pakistan’s experience over more than four decades.
He accused the PTI of opposing the policy and prioritising politics over “national interest”.
Referring to the party’s previous protests in Islamabad, including those in 2022 and 2024, Mr Sanaullah said the recent rise in terrorism had claimed the lives of children, civilians and soldiers in KP.
“On one hand, the martyrs’ bodies are lying there, and on the other hand, the entire provincial government is playing the dhol and chanting slogans, urging people to join the march on Islamabad,” he said and termed the attitude of the KP government “unacceptable”.
Asif says ‘enough is enough’
Meanwhile, Defence Minister Khawaja Asif criticised the PTI-led KP government over its “complete detachment from terrorism in the province and criminal indifference”.
“Enough is enough!!!” he wrote in a post on X.
“The PTI provincial government is roaming the streets for a so-called failed political long march, while its facilitators have unleashed a fresh wave of terrorism against the people of KP during this very time,” he said.
Mr Asif referred to Tuesday’s attacks in Dera Ismail Khan, in which customs officials were among five people killed.
He accused the provincial cabinet, including the chief minister, of ignoring the security situation while remaining focused on their “politically failed long march”.
The defence minister also criticised the chief minister for reportedly scheduling a meeting to question the inspector general of police and the chief secretary over their attendance at the governor’s security meeting.
He accused the provincial government of abandoning the people to the threat of terrorism and alleged that it was in “complete collusion”
with terrorists, citing evidence of a “facilitator ecosystem”.
Recalling past arrests of former premier Nawaz Sharif and his family members, as well as PML-N leaders, Mr Asif said, “Time has proven that the allegations were just allegations and they were imprisoned at Imran Khan’s behest.”
Yet, he stressed, the PML-N fulfilled its parliamentary role responsibly under the Constitution and did not hold the country and institutions “hostage”.
The defence minister said the “time has come to make crucial decisions”, adding that KP could no longer be left “to the mercy of incompetent, insensitive rulers and Taliban allies”.
He stressed that the unity of the country could not be put at risk. “An entire province cannot be held hostage. Enough is enough,” he said.
Published in Dawn, October 8th, 2026
