PTI forms six-member negotiating committee to seek end to Khyber Pakhtunkhwa governor's rule and emergency
PTI's Khyber Pakhtunkhwa parliamentary party has decided to form a six-member committee, including Barrister Gohar, Ali Amin Gandapur and Noorul Haq Qadri, to negotiate the withdrawal of governor's rule and the emergency.
Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf's provincial parliamentary party in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa has decided to form a six-member negotiating committee to hold talks for the withdrawal of governor's rule and the emergency in the province, according to reports from Peshawar on Friday.
The decision was taken at a meeting of the party's provincial parliamentary party in Peshawar, attended by 46 members, with party chairman Barrister Gohar Ali Khan also taking part. Sources cited in the reports said the meeting was held on Thursday night, as the party weighed its next step in the continuing standoff with the federal government.
According to those sources, the new committee will include Barrister Gohar, former chief minister Ali Amin Gandapur and former minister Noorul Haq Qadri, along with three members of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly whose names were not yet reported. Barrister Gohar is said to have assured the meeting that he would formally announce the committee.
The committee's stated mandate is narrow and specific: to negotiate for the lifting of governor's rule and the emergency imposed in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, and to restore the normal functioning of the provincial government. It is not, on the reporting so far, a committee for a wider political settlement, and its talks are expected to focus on the province's constitutional status.
The provincial parliamentary party also declared, in the same meeting, that the release of PTI founder Imran Khan, his sisters and detained Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Chief Minister Sohail Afridi should be treated as the responsibility of the party's federal parliamentary committee, separating that question from the provincial committee's talks on governor's rule.
The move follows an earlier signal from the party's Khyber Pakhtunkhwa parliamentary party, which had already backed talks with the Centre to end governor's rule and the emergency. The formation of a named negotiating committee turns that general backing into a concrete team, with senior figures from both the national and provincial leaderships involved.
The backdrop is a deepening constitutional and political crisis in the province. The federal government suspended the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government, led by PTI, on 11 October and detained Chief Minister Sohail Afridi, a move the party has challenged and that has drawn protests, court petitions and competing claims about the legality of the emergency.
Previous attempts at negotiation between the government and the opposition have collapsed, most notably after two days of talks ended in deadlock in early October over counter-terrorism cooperation and other demands. That history makes the new committee's task difficult: both sides have previously reached broad agreement on a draft, only for the process to break down over issues they describe as fundamental.
For PTI, the committee also serves an internal purpose. The party in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa has faced visible strains in recent months, with groups of lawmakers raising concerns about governance, law and order and the effectiveness of the campaign for Imran Khan's release. A committee that includes both the party chairman and senior provincial figures is intended to present a united negotiating front.
What happens next depends on whether the federal government agrees to engage with the new committee and on the formal announcement Barrister Gohar is expected to make. If talks begin, the immediate questions will be the terms on which governor's rule could be lifted, the fate of the detained chief minister, and whether any agreement can survive the disagreements that sank earlier negotiations.
