Pakistani opposition rules out talks with government, to go ahead with protests

ISLAMABAD: On the eve of its scheduled mass protest, a Pakistani opposition party on Saturday ruled out any possibility of negotiations with the government until Prime Minister Imran Khan resigned and said it would settle for nothing less.
Fazl-ur-Rehman, chief of the Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam-Fazl (JUI-F), one of the country’s largest religious political parties, is leading the protest march to oust Khan, citing rigged elections. The protest raises the prospect of political turmoil as the government struggles to stabilize the economy.
The opposition protest caravan will begin moving from the southern city of Karachi on Sunday to the capital Islamabad in the country’s northeast. Protesters from all over the country are scheduled to gather in the federal capital on Oct. 31 to demand Khan’s resignation and the dissolution of the assemblies.
“We will go ahead with our protest as planned until the Prime Minister resigns from his position,” Mufti Kifayatullah, JUI-F senior leader and a close aide of Rehman, told Arab News on Saturday. 
“If anybody thinks we will settle for less than that, he is living in a fool’s paradise,” he said.
Negotiation committees of both the government and the opposition held two rounds of talks in Islamabad on Friday night to find middle ground ahead of the protest but failed to do so. Following this, Defense Minister Pervez Khattak who was leading the government team, told media that talks would continue.
“We simply asked them (the government team) if they had brought the PM’s resignation with them. They said no, and the talks were over,” Kifayatullah said. 
The opposition committee negotiating with the government had representatives from all opposition parties, including Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) and Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP).
Asad Umar, a PTI lawmaker and member of the negotiation committee, admitted that no headway was made in talks with the opposition so far.
“We are trying to settle the issue peacefully,” he told Arab News. “The government is still open for talks to keep the opposition’s protest within the ambit of the law and constitution.”
Umar declined to provide further details on how the government was planning to deal with the protesters.
Khan won last year’s election on a promise to end corruption and help middle-class families but the economy is running into headwinds, as it struggles to avert a balance of payments crisis and prevent its debt from spiraling out of control. In July, the government agreed to a $6 billion bailout from the International Monetary Fund and accepted a tough reforms package, which has led to record inflation.
Meanwhile, Rehman, a veteran politician who heads an alliance with several seats in the Parliament, has the ability to mobilize support in numerous religious schools, or madrasas, across the country.
“This is a protest movement and will continue till we achieve our goal,” Rehman said while speaking to media earlier this week.