Govt cannot be pressured into accepting demands: Rana Sanaullah on PTI march

Adviser to the Prime Minister on Political Affairs Rana Sanaullah said on Wednesday that the government would not give in to political pressure or allow the country to be destabilised to force it into accepting demands.

Speaking to reporters in Islamabad, Sanaullah said the government remained willing to engage with the opposition but would not allow negotiations to become a means of pressuring it.

“The doors for dialogue are open,” he said, referring to Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif’s call for PTI leaders to hold dialogue and reconsider their plans for protest.

Sanaullah said, however, that negotiations should not be used to force the government into accepting political demands. He accused the PTI of contributing to political tensions and said it had been successful in disrupting peace.

The PML-N leader also criticised what he described as an increasingly intolerant political environment, saying political discourse had descended into personal attacks and below the belt remarks.

Sanaullah rejected the PTI’s claim that it was being excluded from decisions on counterterrorism policy, calling the allegation completely wrong and misleading.

He said the deadlock in talks was also being wrongly attributed to the government’s counterterrorism policy.

According to Sanaullah, the government was already implementing its counterterrorism strategy through intelligence-based operations conducted regularly across the country. He claimed that these operations had produced huge success and alleged that the PTI opposed such operations.