Ready to Dialogue with Establishment if PTI sent home, says Maryam Nawaz

On Thursday, Maryam Nawaz, the Vice President of Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) hinted there was a possibility that a talk might be initiated between the military establishment and the anti-government alliance of eleven opposition political parties, Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM), including PML-N, but conditioned that for any such dialogue to take place, it would be mandatory for it to be conducted not in secret, but in front of the nation and only after the existing selected government of PTI was sent home.

During giving an interview to the BBC Urdu, Maryam Nawaz said that members of the military establishment had tried contacting many people around her, but that no one has reached out to her directly. 

Only after Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) government is sent home, a possibility of initiating a talk from the platform of PDM could be thought of, said Maryam in response to a question about whether she and her father were ready to discourse with the present military leadership, whom Nawaz Sharif, her father and the president of PML-N, has blamed to have helped his ouster as prime minister.

Calling army as the institution of the nation, Maryam said that conversation would definitely be conducted but inside the limits that the Constitution prescribes, adding that the dialogues would be open to the nation, and not secret.

Maryam Nawaz said that her party was not against the army but in order to move ahead, the present selected government would have to go.

Back in September, Nawaz Sharif had forbidden his party members to conduct any type of meetings, be it private, individual, or delegation-level, with the army leadership of the country. He said that if requirements of the Constitution or the national security necessitate any such meetings, they would be conducted after being approved by the higher leadership of the party and would be made public.

Vice President of PML-N said that she was prepared to hold talks with all stakeholders, however, on a question about if she would converse with the present government, Maryam replied that the dialogue would be placed with the nation.

She noted that the talk was being held with the public, and it was going so good that the fake government and the forces are worried, adding that the government and the forces, in their worry, were making mind-shocking mistakes.

Responding to another question, Maryam Nawaz said that PML-N was not moving towards a dead-end, continuing that those, who tried creating this temporary government, were actually the ones headed towards a dead-end instead.

She continued that the public had known that this was going towards the supremacy of the law and the Constitution.