LAHORE, May 20: Contrary to the military’s stand on the war against terrorism, PML-N chief Nawaz Sharif considers dialogue with militants as the best option to restore peace in the country.

“Forty thousands precious lives have so far been lost and the national economy is suffering a loss of billions of dollars (in the war against terrorism). Why should not (we) sit for a dialogue to restore peace,” the chief executive of the incoming government told his party’s legislators-elect at a ceremony here on Monday.

“Is it a bad option?” he asked and then answered himself: “It is the best available option.”

He said gun was not a solution to any problem, adding that the Taliban’s offer for dialogue should be taken seriously. Every option should be explored to bring an end to the ongoing carnage in Karachi and tribal areas, he suggested.

The PML-N chief has been supporting the peace-through-dialogue option since the Taliban wanted him tom be one of the three guarantors for their negotiations with the government “in the best national interest” in February this year.

The Taliban avoided attacking the N-League during its election campaign.

Amid applause from the audience, Mr Sharif reiterated his position of wholeheartedly accepting the mandate of other parties.

“Sindh has given its mandate to the PPP and MQM. They are welcome. They should form the (provincial) government and then there should be no more killings in Karachi,” he said and assured the two parties that they would get the support of the federal government in meeting that objective.

The PML-N chief said his party could have formed its government in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa but it was giving the first right to the single largest party (Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf) there. Being a majority party in Balochistan, he said, the N-League would form a coalition government there. There should be no politicking at the cost of national interest.

Mr Sharif said the era of taking to streets for overthrowing an elected government must end and every government should be given the right to complete its constitutional term. He said May 11 proved to be a day of accountability. In civilised nations, accountability should be held in this manner.

He suggested a code of ethics for politicians and said he had neither carried out his party’s election campaign in a negative manner nor called anyone names, a reference to anti-PML-N ads carried out in the media by the PPP and PML-Q and ‘abusive’ language used by PTI leaders. He was happy over smooth and peaceful transfer of power going to take place in the country and said that had such maturity been shown 65 years ago the country would have been in a better shape today.

The PML-N chief talked of every possible and earliest relief in loadshedding but stopped short of giving any deadline, saying the issue was quite complicated. The nation, he said, would soon see that the government was heading in the right direction.