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The third round of talks between the Pakistani government and the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party aimed at easing political tensions is set to take place on January 16, as reported by Dawn on Monday.
According to Dawn, a notice from the Pakistani National Assembly (NA) Secretariat announced that NA Speaker Ayaz Sadiq would oversee the session at the Pakistani Parliament House. Relations between PTI and the government have sharply declined since the arrest of PTI founder Imran Khan last year, marked by violent protests and state crackdowns. In response, Imran Khan formed a five-member committee to engage in talks with any relevant parties, signalling a change in PTI''s parliamentary strategy, as reported by the Dawn. In turn, Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif established a committee of ruling coalition members to hold discussions. The first meeting between the two sides took place on December 23, 2024, with the second meeting held on January 2. However, no significant progress has been made, as the PTI leadership requested multiple meetings with Imran to finalise their list of demands, Dawn reported. Speaking to the media at Parliament House, PTI Member of the NA Asad Qaiser affirmed that the party was "sincere" about the negotiations. After meeting with Imran Khan on Sunday, the PTI negotiating team was scheduled to meet Speaker Sadiq on Monday to formally present their demands. The meeting in prison, reportedly arranged by Speaker Sadiq, followed several complaints from PTI that its team had not been granted unsupervised access to Imran Khan while in jail. Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Chief Minister Ali Amin Gandapur also met with the PTI chief in a one-on-one session before joining the delegation. At the beginning of negotiations, PTI had put forward two primary demands: the release of political prisoners and the creation of a judicial commission to investigate the May 9 and November 26 crackdowns, as reported by Dawn. (ANI)
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