Islamabad, October 6,2026: Prime Minister Muhammad Shehbaz Sharif on Tuesday offered fresh talks to the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), urging the party to end its ongoing long march towards Islamabad before entering negotiations.
Addressing an event in Islamabad, the prime minister warned that politics of sit-ins and long marches could adversely affect the national economy, saying disruptions to the movement of workers and engineers could affect factories, offices, exports, imports and manufacturing activities.
“Unfortunately, the shadows of dharnas and long marches have once again emerged,” Shehbaz said, adding that the ruling coalition had collectively decided to engage the PTI in talks to persuade it to abandon the politics of sit-ins.
“I urge you to come to your senses, end the long march and sit-in, and then we will sit with you,” he said.
The offer came as the PTI’s long march, led by Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Chief Minister Sohail Afridi, reached Kohat. The march was launched on October 4 after government-opposition talks failed to resolve differences over the planned protest.
The government and opposition held several rounds of negotiations before the talks ended without an agreement. The key differences included the PTI’s demands concerning jailed party founder Imran Khan and the government’s insistence that the planned protest be called off.
The PTI had initially scheduled the protest for September 27 but later postponed it to October 4. The ongoing march is moving through Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, with the convoy scheduled to proceed towards Peshawar before moving further along its announced route.
Responding to the prime minister’s offer, PTI Chairman Barrister Gohar Khan described it as “merely symbolic”, saying the government had not taken any concrete step beyond extending the invitation.
Speaking to journalists in Rawalpindi, Gohar said the PTI had been denied a meeting with Imran Khan for about a year, with the last such meeting taking place in October last year.
He said the party had entered negotiations with the government in good faith but maintained that the government had failed to demonstrate what he described as sufficient “generosity and seriousness”.
Gohar also said that some of Imran Khan’s relatives, including his sisters and cousin Qasim Zaman, had been detained, describing them as non-political.
The PTI chairman maintained that none of the demands presented by his party was illegal. On terrorism, he said the party’s position was clear and called for implementation of the National Action Plan.
He said Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa was the province most affected by terrorism and pointed to a resolution unanimously passed by the provincial assembly on the issue.
Gohar added that another one or two rounds of negotiations could have helped move the matter towards a solution and urged the parties not to shift blame for the failure of talks.
PTI says march will continue
PTI Secretary General Salman Akram Raja said the government should contact the opposition leadership if it genuinely wanted to resume dialogue.
Speaking outside the Islamabad High Court, Raja said the relevant opposition leaders included Leader of the Opposition in the National Assembly Mahmood Khan Achakzai and Leader of the Opposition in the Senate Allama Raja Nasir Abbas.
He said the long march would continue until an agreement was reached and rejected claims that the earlier talks had settled the matter.
Raja said the opposition negotiating team had been given full authority to make decisions but alleged that problems emerged after the government planned operations in five districts of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa without consultation.
He said Imran Khan had given Achakzai and Allama Nasir Abbas authority to negotiate and that they would decide whether to resume talks.
Separately, PTI leader Asad Qaiser called on the government to engage with the party over what he described as its legitimate constitutional and legal demands.
In a video statement, Qaiser said peaceful protest was a constitutional and legal right and would continue until the party’s demands were addressed.
He said the PTI’s protests would remain peaceful and that the law would not be taken into anyone’s hands.
Qaiser also said threats of imposing governor’s rule would not resolve the province’s problems and warned that restricting the constitutional powers of the provincial government could affect the parliamentary system.
He called for political forces to return to the negotiating table, saying peace and supremacy of the Constitution were among the PTI’s demands.
The latest exchange leaves the government and PTI with competing conditions for renewed dialogue, as the PTI march continues through Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa and the government maintains that the protest must be called off before substantive talks can resume.
