960406

Lahore incidents staged

to run away

from PM's dialogue offer: Talpur

ISLAMABAD: The Thursday's incident in Lahore was deliberately staged by the PML(N) to get another excuse for running away from dialogue, offered by the Prime Minister, Minister for Food and Agriculture Nawab Yousaf Talpur said.

In a statement issued here Saturday, the Minister said this time the Prime Minister had accepted the opposition leader's own offer of talks, given on the floor of the National Assembly. But, he added it was very strange, that now Nawaz Sharif was trying to run away from his own initiative.

Referring to the Nawaz Sharif' contention that the talks could not be held under fire, the Minister said it was another attempt to reject offer of talks, while taking political advantage of Javed Ashraf's murder.

The Prime Minister, he said had always been positive and cooperative towards opposition for adopting a joint strategy on the matters of national importance, like Eighth amendment, Kashmir and nuclear issues.

The Prime Minister in her letter, he pointed out wrote to the opposition leader that "Let us fix a date for a meeting". The letter was very simple, containing no condition. But again the response from the opposition's side is negative.

The Minister said "if we go through the whole event, and afterward statement of the opposition leader in Lahore, it appeared that the situation in which PML(N) worker was killed was created by PML(N) itself to find a way out for running away from the process of dialogue.

The incident, he added was the result of hooliganism by the workers of PML(N).

Though he said he was deeply grieved on the demise of a political worker, because his party did not believe in any sort of violence.

The PPP he added never did such type of politics. We have always been propagating and advocating against violence. The government's stand on the Karachi's was evident to it, Talpur added.

His party time and again condemned violence with full force. This is the party which became victim of the violence in the past at the hands of Martial Law government during late General Ziaul Haq. How, can we go for a murder of a political worker. No body in our ranks could approve this sort of politics, he added.

The Minister said it proved beyond doubts that Nawaz Sharif had not been serious or sincere to hold talks with the popularly elected government. He began politics during the Martial law and he was not used to democratic norms.

It was the same line which was earlier followed by the MQM. The MQM''s leadership had discontinued talks on the ground of violence in Karachi, committed by their own workers.

In a democratic government, there is no option left other than talks to sort out political differences and resolve the issues of tension between the ruling and the opposition.

If the opposition leader still feels that he can not have a dialogue with the government, he should have shown guts to say that it is difficult for him to sit on the negotiating table with the leaders like Benazir Bhutto. He said Nawaz Sharif might have felt that he was no match with her on knowledge-wise and competency-wise.-APP