SIALKOT: Days before the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf’s (PTI) planned nationwide protests, Defence Minister Khawaja Asif said that the federal government’s offer for dialogues with the Imran Khan-founded party still stands. “From our side, dialogue offer to PTI still intact,” said the defence minister during his interaction with journalists in Sialkot yesterday.  Last week, the incarcerated PTI founder called on his supporters to march to Islamabad on November 24. “Imran Khan says this is the final call for a [anti-government] protest. The PTI founder has stressed that the party’s entire leadership will be part of the march,” said his lawyer Faisal Chaudhry following a meeting in Adiala Jail.

Khan has been behind bars since August last year after he was sentenced in the Toshakhana case and subsequently sentenced in other cases. Referring to the former ruling party’s recent protest marches towards Islamabad, Asif said that the PTI, under the leadership of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Chief Minister Ali Amin Gandapur, “attacked” the federation twice. The PTI held two protest rallies headed by KP firebrand CM in the federal capital in September and October amid riots and clashes with the police.

Mocking KP CM, the minister said: “CM Ali Amin Gandapur ran away and left protesting workers abandoned [in Islamabad]. In October march, the Gandapur went missing after entering the KP House in the federal capital. After a mysterious day-long disappearance, he resurfaced in the KP Assembly and addressed the lawmakers. His whereabouts remained unknown for over 30 hours after PTI tried to stage a protest in Islamabad.