Bilawal offers to end KP emergency if PTI agrees t...

Summary

• Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) Chairman Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari has offered to request Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif to end the emergency in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) if Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) agrees to political dialogue and helps create conditions that make the measure unnecessary.
• Addressing the National Assembly on Wednesday, Bilawal urged PTI and other opposition parties to engage with the government and work towards a political solution.
• Referring to the National Action Plan, Bilawal said political consensus had previously helped Pakistan develop a coordinated response to terrorism.

AI Generated Summary

Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) Chairman Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari has offered to request Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif to end the emergency in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) if Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) agrees to political dialogue and helps create conditions that make the measure unnecessary.

Addressing the National Assembly on Wednesday, Bilawal urged PTI and other opposition parties to engage with the government and work towards a political solution. He said he would personally ask the prime minister to withdraw the emergency once the circumstances leading to its imposition had been addressed.

Bilawal maintained that the federal government had made efforts to negotiate with the opposition before taking the constitutional step. He acknowledged PTI’s right to oppose the decision but argued that the party, particularly its provincial leadership, had also contributed to the circumstances that led to the emergency.

The PPP chairman accused PTI of carrying out a “political suicide attack” on its own government in KP. He said the opposition could criticise the federal government and President Asif Ali Zardari, but it should also examine its own role in the developments.

Bilawal said he and other PPP leaders had initially called for negotiations before the government moved towards what he described as a “constitutional atom bomb”. He explained that the party wanted the government and opposition to resolve their differences over counterterrorism cooperation and remove the political, legal and constitutional grounds for imposing the emergency.