Maryam Nawaz says open to dialogue with military establishment once PTI govt dismantled

PML-N vice-president Maryam Nawaz has said that her party is open to dialogue with the military establishment, but only after the incumbent PTI government "is sent home".

"The army is my institution," Maryam said in an interview with BBC Urdu. "We will definitely talk but within the ambit of the Constitution," she added. 

The PML-N leader said she was not against state institutions but stressed that there would be no dialogue in secret. 

The "incumbent government will have to go if we are to move forward", she added.

Maryam claimed that the "establishment had reached out to her close aides" but had not "contacted her directly". 

She also said the idea of dialogue through the platform of the Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM) can be deliberated upon. 

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Minus Imran Khan

"The dialogue is with the people now," she said, adding that the ruling, PTI-led government was "so nervous" over the public response that "they do not know how to react".

"The biggest stakeholders are the public," she said, dismissing the notion that the PML-N was headed towards a dead-end due to its politics.

Maryam said her party has its own narrative while PPP had its own.

Refusing to comment on a "minus-Imran Khan" strategy, Maryam said it was necessary to remove the PTI government to take the country out of its current crisis. 

"Whenever the government takes notice of a commodity, its prices shoot up," she said.

"The biggest issue is that people's mandate was stolen. We need free and fair elections," she said. "It is time for the incumbent government to be held accountable."

Maryam ruled out any political 'understanding' with the PTI, saying that it did not make sense to form a coalition when the incumbent government was "weakened".