Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif on Monday offered an olive branch to his predecessor Imran Khan, saying he was ready to put aside his differences for the sake of Pakistan. “A hundred steps forward can be taken for Pakistan. All differences can be put aside,” Sharif said at a press conference here. He said Finance Minister Ishaq Dar recently met President Arif Alvi, who belonged to Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), with his permission.
Alvi’s meeting with Dar was called by the media as part of the ruling coalition’s efforts to create a communication channel with the former prime minister. “We will move 100 steps forward for the stability of the country. But it takes two to tango. We have to make sacrifices when nations face such a situation [as we are],” Sharif said.
His offer to hold talks came after the PTI again threatened to dissolve the Punjab and Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa provincial assemblies if the date for the general elections was not announced by December 20. But when the prime minister offered interviews, he blasted Khan, calling him “self-centered” and a “fraud”. “I want to tell people that this person (Khan) is a fraud who has nothing to do with the future of the nation,” Sharif said. “He [Khan] is a very self-centered person who only cares about his personal interests and can stoop to any level for his own interests,” he added.
He also spoke about the British publication Daily Mail’s apology, calling it a vindication of the 220 million people in Pakistan, “which also thwarted the anti-state conspiracy hatched by Imran Khan and his cronies.” “Finally after three years they (Daily Mail) have apologized not only to me but to all of you. It was an apology to the 220 million Pakistanis and the millions of those mothers and children who benefited from DFID projects to support their food and health,” Sharif said.
He clarified that the £600 million DFID project was spent transparently and the allegations were also contradicted by DFID itself. The prime minister also mocked Khan, saying that an article published in the Financial Times accused him (Khan) of spending donations collected for Shaukat Khanum Hospital on his politics. He said Khan had committed the “cheapest act” when he sold a specially designed watch with an image of the Holy Kaaba that was given to him by the Saudi crown prince. Sharif added that the federal government inherited a fragile economy and had to turn to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for help when the international lender was not ready to trust Pakistan.
