{"id":35274,"date":"2026-01-09T12:04:12","date_gmt":"2026-01-09T12:04:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/?p=35274"},"modified":"2026-01-09T12:04:12","modified_gmt":"2026-01-09T12:04:12","slug":"fawad-calls-on-pm-president-to-lead-talks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/?p=35274","title":{"rendered":"Fawad calls on PM, President to lead talks"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>Former federal minister Fawad Chaudhry has reiterated the need for dialogue, emphasising that negotiations are essential for the country\u2019s stability. He called on the prime minister and the president to take ownership of the negotiation process.<\/p>\n<p>Speaking to the media after attending court proceedings, Chaudhry said the entire PTI leadership, including Shah Mahmood Qureshi, supported talks.<\/p>\n<p>Criticising the government, he claimed it relied on \u201cdaily spectacles\u201d to remain relevant and questioned how the country could function while people faced sentences totalling \u201cthousands of years.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He also expressed disappointment at what he described as the opposition\u2019s lack of seriousness and urged party leaders to show courage if they had accepted responsibility.<\/p>\n<p>Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif has reportedly given the go-ahead to National Assembly Speaker Sardar Ayaz Sadiq to proceed with negotiations between the government and PTI, sources said on Wednesday, a significant development in efforts to cool political temperatures.<\/p>\n<p>Read: K-P CM Afridi arrives in Karachi, greeted by PPP minister<\/p>\n<p>Parliamentary sources said that the government side has agreed to take part in the talks at the speaker&#8217;s request. However, discussions will only be held with PTI&#8217;s elected representatives, while no engagement is planned with unelected party figures.<\/p>\n<p>Despite the government&#8217;s readiness, the sources said, no PTI leader has yet formally approached the Office of the Speaker to begin the negotiation process, and initial outreach remains pending from the opposition&#8217;s side.<\/p>\n<p>Chaudhry praised the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Chief Minister Sohail Afridi for demonstrating responsibility, but described a recent statement attributed to Sohail Afridi as unfortunate. He said the political struggle was between the government and the opposition, while ordinary Pakistanis were bearing the cost.<\/p>\n<p>Read more: Govt signals willingness to engage PTI<\/p>\n<p>He added that the party\u2019s real stakeholders were in jail, while what he called \u201cguest actors\u201d continued to travel abroad. Reiterating that the PTI leadership had already called for talks, he said the government would need to reduce political tensions to make negotiations possible.<\/p>\n<p>Highlighting the economic situation, he said household survey data indicated that nearly 30 per cent of Pakistanis were unable to afford three meals a day, reflecting the severity of the crisis. He added that no overseas Pakistani was currently willing to invest even a single dollar due to prevailing uncertainty.<\/p>\n<p>Meanwhile, an Anti-Terrorism Court (ATC) in Lahore extended Chaudhry\u2019s interim bail until 13 February in seven cases linked to the May 9 violence. The court approved the extension after confirming his attendance and adjourned the matter until the next hearing.<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Former federal minister Fawad Chaudhry has reiterated the need for dialogue, emphasising that negotiations are essential for the country\u2019s stability. He called on the prime minister and the president to take ownership of the negotiation process. Speaking to the media after attending court proceedings, Chaudhry said the entire PTI leadership, including Shah Mahmood Qureshi, supported [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-35274","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-english-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35274","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=35274"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35274\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=35274"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=35274"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=35274"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}