Daily Times

ISLAMABAD: Federal Minister for Finance Ishaq Dar has reached London on a two-day emergency visit in order to take Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif into confidence regarding the current situation of government-opposition talks on terms of reference (ToRs) for investigation into revelations made by the Panama Papers.

The minister will also brief the prime minister on recently presented federal budget for financial year 2016-17.

Sources said Dar will inform the prime minister regarding the ongoing deadlock in the 12-member parliamentary committee on ToRs and seek his advice on the issue. Sources said further discussion with the opposition on ToRs will be held only in the light of directions issued by the prime minister. It is pertinent to mention here that the PPP and PTI have already declared that further talks with the government on ToRs were useless because the government continued with its rigid stance despite show of enough flexibility by the joint opposition on the issue. Top leaders of both the opposition parties including Aitzaz Ahsan and Shah Mehmood Qureshi while expressing their reservations on the matter have already stated that the issue of ToRs had entered into a blind alley.