Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi told the Senate on Tuesday that talks between the federal government and Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) had fallen because of Murad Saeed. Former Khyber Pakhtunkhwa chief minister Sohail Afridi, he said, was not the person taking the decisions. His account was that the centre placed six changes in a draft, Afridi received it, and it was passed onward to the person Naqvi blames, after which the talks ended.
How the draft moved
Naqvi said the party ought to have admitted at the start if the representatives at the table could not decide, and that Afridi's own cabinet colleagues were blaming the same figure. "Murad Saeed sabotaged the entire negotiation process," the interior minister said. He described a last phone call at 11:45pm, made to press the other side to settle what remained open, but no agreement emerged.
He alleged that PTI would not give up a rigid position, and that a few people had taken a wrong step that harmed everyone involved. He also said that on October 10 the government contacted Barrister Gohar and asked him to suggest amendments to paragraph four of the draft.
Emergency and the terrorism dispute
Naqvi defended the emergency in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa as a step taken inside the Constitution, not outside it. An emergency is a constitutional power used when the federation says a province faces a grave threat. He said no constitutional provision had been violated, and that the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) and the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) had examined every relevant clause before proceeding. Critics, he said, should point to any provision they believe was breached.
He insisted that governor's rule had been imposed on the same constitutional basis. Governor's rule means the governor administers the province in place of the elected cabinet. The choice of emergency or governor's rule, he said, had been available on November 26 and even earlier, yet the government kept engaging PTI. He maintained that the emergency was decided under the Constitution only once an agreement could not be reached.
Naqvi alleged that several PTI members had links with the banned Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), a banned militant group. "We will prove it and show the evidence whenever asked," he said. He also claimed that 80 per cent of those involved in the current wave of terrorism were coming from Afghanistan.
He said ending terrorism had formed part of the parliamentary discussion from the first day of the negotiations. Asad Qaiser, he said, had assured him that PTI would support Pakistan in that fight. Naqvi's reply, as he recounted it, was that the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government's position on combating terrorism differed from the assurance.
The federal government, he said, had attended funerals of people killed in terrorist attacks, while representatives of the provincial government had in many cases stayed away. Those in the police and other security services were giving their lives, he said, while Afridi, a day later, would speak against them. He said the centre had tried negotiation before it acted in the province.
Timeline: what has happened so far
- November 26: Naqvi said the option of imposing emergency or governor's rule in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa was available, and had been available even earlier.
- October 10: He said the government contacted Barrister Gohar and asked him to suggest amendments to paragraph four of the draft.
- Tuesday: Naqvi told the Senate that six amendments given to Sohail Afridi were forwarded and that the negotiations collapsed.
Aasan alfaaz mein
Mohsin Naqvi ne Senate mein kaha ke Murad Saeed ne federal hukumat aur PTI ki guftagu kharab kar di. Unhon ne kaha ke Sohail Afridi khud faisla nahi kar rahe thay, aur muswadde ki chhe tabdeelian aage bhej di gayin. Emergency aur governor's rule ko unhon ne aain ke andar qarar dia, aur terrorism wale vaade ko KP hukumat ke amal se alag bataya. Aam logon ke liye matlab yeh hai ke soobe ki hukumat aur security abhi siyasi jhagre mein atki hui hai.
