KARACHI / ISLAM­ABAD: In the midst of a push by the government to block PTI’s entry to parliament by ‘banning’ it, a member of the federal cabinet has said the PML-N is not worried by incarcerated ex-PM Imran Khan’s efforts to engage the military for talks.

In an interview with Voice of America, published on Thursday, Planning and Development Minis­ter Ahsan Iqbal was asked whether his party would have an issue with potential talks between the military and the PTI.

He said his party had “nothing to worry about” as it was unlikely to encounter any problems, adding that there was no prevalent thinking within the military to interfere in politics again either, Dawn.com reported.

“As you know, the military’s spokesperson had very clearly and categorically stated that based on its 2018 experience, it had decided on an institutional level to separate itself from politics,” Mr Iqbal said.

“If Imran believes the military establishment should stay neutral in politics, then why has he agreed to negotiate with it,” he asked, rhetorically.

Mr Iqbal added that PTI should apologise to the institutions, adding that the party’s offensive position against the state would not yield anything positive.

“On one hand, Imran says the military should be neutral […], and on the other hand, he says only animals are neutral. He said the army chief is the father of the nation and then he called him Mir Jaffar and Mir Sadiq,” Mr Iqbal said.

Regarding a potential ban on the PTI, Iqbal said institutions could always move forward with it if and when they had evidence for a strong case against the party.

He said that a lot of information had surfaced suggesting the party’s social media was “under the control of Pakistan’s enemy.”

Mr Iqbal said that given the substantial alleged evidence against PTI, the information minister must have received reports that led to the announcement of the ban. He added that the decision would be thoroughly investigated and made in accordance with the law and Constitution.

“This [ban] cannot be done via a notification […] and if the government is to take this decision then the decision should be so strong that it can stand the scrutiny of law.”

Last month, the government announced that had decided to ban the PTI based on the evidence it has collected against the party.

Information Minister Attaullah Tarar said that the decision was taken in view of the “foreign funding case, the May 9 riots, the cipher episode, and the resolution passed in the US against Pakistan”.

At a press conference on Thursday, the information minister said that a “spoilt child” (a thinly veiled reference to Mr Khan) who had been inciting his supporters to violence and subversion, was now pleading for talks. Mr Tarar was of the opinion that the offer of talks was part of a conspiracy being hatched by Mr Khan as he could not give up his “subversive agenda”.

Published in Dawn, August 2nd, 2024