Khawaja Asif says PML-N ready to end tit-for-tat politics if PTI takes initiative

PML-N stalwart Khawaja Asif on Thursday said that PML-N is willing to end tit-for-tat politics if PTI takes initiative.

"If the PTI takes two steps forward, the PML-N is willing to take five".

Asif's remarks, on Geo News show "Aaj Shahzeb Khanzada Kay Saath", come on a day where the relationship between the government and opposition already fraught with dirty accusations against one another took a turn for the worse after the opposition alleged that the government is seeking to provide relief to Indian spy Khulbhushan Jadhav.

The government has not only offered the spy consular access for a third time — on which it awaits a response from India — it has also approached the Islamabad High Court to appoint a counsel for him so he may appeal his sentence.

Jadhav was sentenced to death by a Pakistan military court on April 10, 2017.

Khawaja Asif said that the government should not have made the statements it did today in the parliament, whereby the human rights minister seemed to be defending the rights of Jadhav.

"She says we [PML-N] are the ones who approached the ICJ (International Court of Justice) [for arbitration in the Jadhav case]. She has no idea what she is talking about."

"Do Pakistani and Kashmiri prisoners have no rights in Kashmir? Have [the PTI] raised their voice for such prisoners?" he asked.

Asif said that it is the government that is actually "safeguarding the rights of Jadhav and is making all necessary arrangements for the same".

"Who is Modi's friend today?" he asked, in reference to heavy criticism regularly directed at the PML-N government when PTI was in opposition.

"Is it Nawaz Sharif or is it Imran Khan?"

"They called Nawaz Sharif a friend of Modi. We have merely settled the score today," he said, referring to the opposition's lambasting of the government today in the parliament.

Asif also said that Prime Minister Imran Khan was the one who would "give missed calls" to Modi during the Indian elections and that he had admitted to having done that.

He also said that the premier "would pray for Modi's victory".

The PML-N leader also rued the absence of political traditions of the past where the government and opposition had fundamental respect for one other, which he said had completely been destroyed. "Where has the basic regard for one other vanished to?"

"Was the kind of language used on top of the container day in and day out for 126 days part of that tradition?"

"They [PTI] neither accorded respect to traditions when they were in opposition nor have they done so now in the government."

Asif said that PML-N "will never forget the treatment meted out to Nawaz Sharif by the PTI government".

"But if we must bury the hatchet, the PTI must take initiative and the PML-N will respond in kind."

He said that Nawaz understood these traditions and had himself walked over to Imran Khan to inquire of his health back in 2013 when he took a fall from a container while campaigning for elections.

The PML-N stalwart also questioned whether the same good political traditions were extended to the media.

"They [the government] are busy fulfilling their international responsibilities. While they do that they must also fulfil their promises to the voter."

Asif further said that the government must refrain from "using state institutions to soothe their own ego".