PTI distances itself from Imran’s Taliban office statement

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A Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) member Asad Umar has said that party Chairman Imran Khan’s recent statement regarding Pakistani Taliban was not an official PTI policy statement.

Speaking at a conference, Umar said the idea for establishing an office for peace talks with the Taliban reflected the personal views of the PTI chairman.

Asad said it was wrong to criticise those who wished to use peace talks as a way to fight terrorism in the country and come to terms with the terrorists.

“However, peace talks go hand in hand with cooperation from the other side and insisting on peace talks if the terror attacks continued would be a weakness,” he said, “besides being unfair to the country.”

Earlier, Imran had stated that it was imperative to have a political office for the Taliban where peace talks between the government and the Taliban could be held. He insisted that the absence of such an office would hinder negotiations and assist in the continuation of the decade-long war against terror.

He also referred to the Afghan Taliban office in Qatar officiated by the United States government to facilitate the dialogue process and stressed that the government take negotiations seriously.

3 COMMENTS

  1. This is a fake story. Asad omar only said in a talk show that it is imran khan's personal statement since it wasnt decided or spoken from PTI's plat form and neither did Imran said it should happen. Imran suggested that openning a taliban office is one way to start this process of dialouge which was a suggestion.

  2. already the cracks have started to appear in the rank and file.Umar, enlighten us as to when does whatever imran says is official or not ? or is it a hit or miss situation -if it bodes well with the general public it is official, if not suddenly it becomes a personal statement – sort of sitting on a fence position!

  3. Words have conequences esp when spoken by the leader of a party. They reflect policy and not personal opinion. Why does Imran not come with an explanation or is he sounding out the terrain? Sometimes silence is golden but not when such a prepostrous suggestion is made. Get a spin doctor!

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