Federal Minister for Frontier Affairs Amir Muqam announced on Thursday that the federal government would take part in the upcoming peace jirga called by the PTI.
The announcement was made as Muqam held a joint press conference alongside PTI stalwart Asad Qaiser in Islamabad.
“We have conveyed our requests to the federal government and are grateful that they accepted our invitation,” Qaiser said while jointly addressing reporters after the meeting.
“We have come together and we know what policy we want. Whatever it is, the province’s people and leadership need to come together to create a concerted plan of action,” he added. In response to a question, Muqam said that the PTI presented “the reason why we are here” and that the government accepted it.
“They said they wanted peace and that we are all one,” he added.
Meanwhile, Qaiser wrote a post on X announcing that a delegation he led also met with National Awami Party Chairman Aftab Sherpao. “The delegation invited Aftab Ahmad Sherpao to attend the peace jirga organised by the KP provincial government on November 12,” he wrote.
Meanwhile, President of the ANP’s KP chapter, Mian Iftikhar Hussain, said that he will hold consultations and then inform the PTI and the press about accepting the invitation to the peace jirga.
Separately, KP CM Sohail Afridi said on Thursday that he was unable to meet the chief justice of the Islamabad High Court (IHC) earlier today and was denied permission to meet PTI founder and ex-premier Imran Khan at Rawalpindi’s Adiala Jail.
Addressing reporters outside the prison, CM Afridi lamented that he was unable to meet the party founder and the chief justice of the IHC, the latter of whom he had waited 90 minutes to meet before leaving empty-handed.
“As you all know, there have been continuous efforts through constitutional and legal means; this is the fifth time,” he said, referring to how frequently he was denied a meeting with the PTI founder.
The PTI earlier staged a protest outside the Islamabad High Court (IHC) over the multiple denials of CM Afridi’s jail meeting with Imran. The KP CM reached the IHC for “legal proceedings”, after which he would head to the Adiala jail to meet Imran, the PTI said on X.
The move comes a day after the PTI parliamentary party unanimously passed a resolution calling for the arrangement of a meeting between Afridi and Imran. The PTI members urged both the federal and the Punjab governments to implement the IHC in letter and spirit.