Islamabad, October 6, 2026 (Yes Punjab News)
Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) chairman Gohar Ali Khan has dismissed Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif’s offer for talks as “merely symbolic”, saying the government had taken no concrete step beyond extending the invitation.
Speaking to reporters in Rawalpindi, Gohar said PTI leaders had not been allowed to meet party founder and former Prime Minister Imran Khan for nearly a year. He said the last such meeting took place in October last year.
His remarks came hours after Shehbaz Sharif offered to hold talks with the PTI on the condition that the party end its ongoing long march towards Islamabad.
Addressing an event in Islamabad, Sharif said protests, sit-ins and long marches could adversely affect Pakistan’s economy.
“I urge you to come to your senses, end the long march and sit-in, and then we will sit with you,” he said.
The PTI has continued with its planned march despite failed negotiations with the federal government.
Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Chief Minister Sohail Afridi on Monday urged PTI workers to join the long march as the convoy reached Kohat. Addressing participants, he thanked the people for what he described as a “magnificent welcome” and said the march would resume towards Peshawar from University Chowk on Tuesday.
“I am a soldier of Imran Khan. Even if the whole world comes together, it cannot put a price on me,” Afridi said, adding that the message had to be conveyed that Khyber Pakhtunkhwa belonged to Imran Khan.
Afridi had begun the march from Lakki Marwat on Sunday after talks between the PTI and the federal government failed to resolve the dispute over the planned protest.
The negotiations, chaired by National Assembly Speaker Ayaz Sadiq, concluded on Saturday without a breakthrough. The federal government had sought cancellation of the march, while the PTI demanded assurances that its leaders would be allowed to meet Imran Khan.
Following the failure of the talks, PTI leaders announced that the march would proceed as planned.
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