Ishaq Dar expected to hold meeting with Zardari in Dubai: sources

ISLAMABAD: Finance Minister Ishaq Dar is expected to leave for Dubai today to meet Pakistan People’s Party co-Chairman Asif Ali Zardari, sources told Geo News.

Dar is taking the trip on the advice of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif in a bid to ease tensions between the two parties, the source added.

Both political parties are expected to evaluate the threats to democracy which the country faces.

Several senior leaders of the party including its chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari are present in Dubai. Sindh Chief Minister Qaim Ali Shah is expected to arrive in Dubai today.

The PPP and PML-N in the last few months were at loggerheads over the issue of Panama Leaks— secret documents where the Prime Minister's family was alleged to own offshore accounts.

However in recent weeks unity of the joint opposition had fizzled out after the PTI threatened of an anti-government movement in August. The PTI chief Imran Khan also made a controversial statement last week claiming that Pakistanis would distribute sweets if the army stages a coup.

Matters such as the extension of special powers of the Pakistan Rangers in Sindh may be discussed in the meeting. 

Due to the delay in extending the paramilitary force’s special powers in Sindh, the Rangers have stopped various activities to curb law and order including snap checking of vehicles and detaining suspected individuals.

The paramilitary force has played a major role in curbing crime in the southern metropolis of Karachi.

Since 2013, acting under powers bestowed on the paramilitary force under Article-147, the Pakistan Rangers Sindh conducted multiple targeted operations in interior Sindh during which 533 suspects were arrested. Those detained were handed over to the Police and various law enforcement agencies for processing.

The PML-N won the Azad Jammu Kashmir elections on Friday by a landslide majority, however the PPP alleged it of rigging.

During a telephonic conversation with party’s Secretary General in the region Chaudhary Latif Akbar on Friday, Bilawal said,”Narendra Modi was conquering occupied Kashmir while Nawaz Sharif doing the same in Muzaffarabad,” sources confirmed.