KP chief minister offers talks to federal government as PTI march put off to 4 October

Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Chief Minister Sohail Afridi on Saturday offered talks to Pakistan’s federal government, saying the standoff over the PTI’s planned Islamabad long march could be resolved through mutual understanding.

“If the federal government wants to resolve the issue within seven days, it should do so through mutual understanding,” Afridi told senior journalists in Peshawar, according to Geo News. “If negotiations have to be held after the long march, why not do them before?”

The offer comes a day after Afridi announced that the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf’s long march towards Islamabad, originally planned for 27 September, had been postponed to 4 October. The party is demanding the release of jailed founder Imran Khan and what it calls the restoration of constitutional supremacy.

Afridi said the party’s political committee had decided to give the government some time, adding that the delay was also part of the PTI’s “strategy”. He welcomed Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-Fazl chief Maulana Fazlur Rehman if he joined the protest: “If Maulana Fazlur Rehman comes to us, we will welcome him.”

On his own position, the chief minister said: “If I am disqualified, the PTI founder will decide my replacement.”

PTI’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa information secretary Shaukat Yousafzai, also speaking in Peshawar, described the postponement as a “political strategy”, saying the federal government had deployed thousands of police personnel and containers. “We have changed our political strategy. We support a peaceful struggle,” he said, adding that the federal government would “eventually have to come to the negotiating table” and that the PTI would talk if the government negotiated in practical terms.