PTI ready for talks with establishment: spokesperson

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf’s spokesman Raoof Hasan has claimed that a dialogue between his party and the establishment is inevitable for which PTI is prepared.

He said this during an interview to a private television channel. He remarked that PTI was ready for talks with the establishment yesterday and was prepared even today for this exercise. “It has been PTI’s policy that we want to engage with the establishment and I will go a step ahead to say that dialogue between my party and the establishment is inevitable for this state and we must not delay this,” he contended.

However, his assertion runs contrary to a recent categorical statement by the party founder chairman Imran Khan during media talk at the Adiala jail, Rawalpindi, that there would be no talks with the establishment.

Raoof Hasan advocated initiation of dialogue so that solution to the country’s problems and challenges could be found and Pakistan taken forward. “If not today, tomorrow or day after, talks will have to be held. We want to engage with them (establishment) in any case,” he emphasized.

He disagreed with the questioner that, currently, the policy of establishment was not to engage with PTI and added they have engaged with his party and why he should not be hopeful that they would again engage. The PTI spokesperson, however, maintained that a conducive environment would have to be created for which both sides would have to make efforts.