Islamabad: Ex premier Khan seeks dialogue with army

However, he has set a number of preconditions to the talks that will be difficult to meet. The Pakistan Tehreek-e Insaf (PTI) leader has been in jail for about a year. Meanwhile, the population has been protesting for days about rising energy prices and army violence in Belucistan.

Islamabad (AsiaNews/Agencies) - Former Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan said his party, the Pakistan Tehreek-e Insaf (PTI) is ready to hold talks with the military establishment. He told local journalists this from Adala Prison, where he has been held for about a year to serve a sentence he says was imposed on him on charges designed to keep him out of power.

However, the former premier has set a number of preconditions for the talks, including the release of the other PTI leaders, the return of the government mandate to his party (Khan had been ousted in a vote of no confidence by Parliament in April 2022) and the holding of transparent elections.

In the February elections, the PTI candidates had been forced to stand as independents and, despite winning a majority of the votes, they were sidelined by what are called the establishment-controlled parties, i.e. the Pakistani army, which has also ruled the country for a long time in the past.

Imran Khan said he had appointed Mahmood Khan Achakzai, a close political ally and a known critic of the army, as his representative in any talks.

"If the military leadership appoints its representative, we will start conditional negotiations," he continued on social statements. "We prefer negotiations with the military leadership, who are the real decision-makers," he continued, refusing to sit at the table of talks with the current government (described as a "puppet" by PTI) led by Shehbaz Sharif.

The army responded by releasing a video clip of a press conference dating back to May in which the spokesman, Major General Ahmed Sharif Chaudhry, declared that it was not possible to support 'any political ideology, any political leader or any political group involved in attacks on its army'.

Imran Khan and his supporters are in fact accused of storming some army bases and the headquarters of institutions during the protests that broke out after Khan's first arrest last year. Government spokespersons did not take the news about the former premier's intentions well. They accused him of seeking the army's pardon only because he fears that he will be given harsh sentences for the various cases in which he is accused.

In the meantime, Pakistan continues to be rocked by protests: at least 3,000 people supported by the Islamist Jamaat-e-Islami party blocked one of Islamabad's main roads at the beginning of the week against the increase of electricity taxes. Before the end of June, the government had increased the cost of the bills by 26%, which then increased by another 20% on 13 July. Officials repeated that this was a necessary measure to obtain a USD 7 billion loan from the International Monetary Fund.

Meanwhile, Belucistan is also shaken by demonstrations: thousands of people protested against the army's violence towards the local population. For decades, various groups have been demanding independence for the south-western province of Pakistan, but the government has always tried to quell aspirations for autonomy, often resorting to internet blockades and forced disappearances and extrajudicial killings.

The Beluci people have also long denounced the exploitation of the region's natural resources, to the detriment of the local population. The port of Gwadar, part of the Economic Corridor between China and Pakistan, has often been the epicentre of these protests and Chinese workers also targeted with armed attacks.

At least one person has died in the violence in recent days. The Baloch Yakjehti Committee, a human rights group, issued a statement addressed to the government in Islamabad: 'In the last two days you have created an apocalypse in Belucistan, injured many people, martyred a young man and forcibly displaced hundreds of people. Some government representatives are trying to achieve a peaceful resolution with the leaders of the protests.