ISLAMABAD: PML-N leader Shahid Khaqan Abbasi has said that a “national dialogue” is the only way to solve the myri-ad of issues the country is facing.
He made the remarks while speaking to a private tv channel. During the interview, Abbasi — who is part of a campaign called “Reimagining Pakistan” alongside PML-N’s Miftah Ismail and former senator Mustafa Nawaz Khokhar — said that Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif should come forward and announce a national dialogue to solve the country’s problems. “Today, this is his (PM Shehbaz’s) responsibility,” he said. However, the ex-prime minister also asserted that holding elections was of “secondary importance” and not a solution for the problems being faced by the country today.“You also have to decide on matters that go beyond elections,” he stressed.
He added that stakeholders would have to decide whether they would continue to practice politics and run the coun-try as they had done in the past.
During the interview, he was also asked whether his party, the PML-N, would warm up to the idea of holding a nation-al dialogue.
“I am not the party’s spokesperson, but if someone has any other way [to resolve the country’s problems], they may propose it,” he replied. “I believe this is the only way [forward],” he said, adding that there was no other solution to Pakistan’s problems.
“Does any political party have the capacity [to solve the country’s problems on its own]? In the past one-and-a-half year, has any political party talked about the country’s problems?” he asked.
“We (politicians) verbally abused each other, put each other in jails, insulted each other, we paralysed parliament and made it a place where expletives [are exchanged]. But none of us spoke about the country’s problems,” he lamented. –Agencies
