ISLAMABAD: A top leader of former prime minister Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) said on Monday the party wanted to improve its relations with the country’s all-powerful army, confirming that discussions on early elections were ongoing with the federal government. 

Khan was ousted from the office of prime minister in a parliamentary vote of no-confidence in April. He has since blamed his removal on a conspiracy hatched by the United States, the country’s military, and his political opponents, all of whom deny the charge. 

The ex-premier particularly criticized former army chief General Qamar Javed Bajwa for not blocking his ouster and backing the new collation government of PM Shehbaz Sharif instead. However, after Bajwa retired last month and a new army chief, General Asim Munir, was appointed, Khan expressed hope of an end to what he called a “prevailing trust deficit between the army and the public.”

The army has ruled Pakistan for nearly half its 75-year history and plays a central role in internal politics and foreign policy. 

Speaking at a presser in Lahore, PTI’s Senior Vice President Chaudhry Fawad Hussain said the Sharif government was trying to sabotage the PTI’s recent repeated attempts to mend ties with the army.

“While we are trying to lessen the tension that has existed between the PTI, the armed forces, and the judiciary for the last few months, some people, the federal government precisely, is trying to derail that process,” he said.

However, Hussain said the PTI wanted to move on toward general elections, confirming that “informal communications” between the PTI and the federal government on announcement of snap polls had begun.

“Either they can sit with us and talk, give us a date for the general elections ... or else we will dissolve our assemblies,” Hussain said, reiterating the PTI’s warning it would dissolve assemblies in the two provinces, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan, where the party is in majority. 

“We have tried to make them understand that no system other than elections can bring stability in the country,” Hussain told reporters.

PM Sharif has so far rejected the demand for snap polls, saying the election would be held as scheduled late next year.