PTI Marches on Islamabad After Khan Talks Fail — SkimNews
Get the Geopolitics newsletter
Daily geopolitics — wars, elections, sanctions, the diplomatic moves that move markets. Free.
- PTI supporters set off on the march from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province on Sunday after two rounds of weekend talks between the government and party leadership failed to break the deadlock
- More than 5,000 began the rally, which was originally scheduled for Sept 27 but postponed to Oct 4 to allow negotiations to take place
- Sohail Afridi, chief minister of KP, said the march will reach Khairabad, 80km west of Islamabad, by Thursday, where the plan for the "next phase" will be announced
- Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi accused Afridi of "sabotaging" the negotiations and cited an Islamabad High Court order from Sept 14 ruling that no party has the right to occupy public roads, highways or buildings in Islamabad
- Imran Khan has been behind bars since August 2023 following convictions his party calls politically motivated; all but one of those convictions have since been suspended or overturned on appeal
- PTI is also demanding the release of Khan's three sisters, arrested last month, and has flagged concerns about Khan's health, particularly a right eye condition requiring months of specialist treatment
- James Dorsey of the National University of Singapore said Khan is a populist with "a genuine popular movement that had broad popular support," explaining the government's determination to block the march from entering the capital
Why it matters: The government has spent weeks erecting shipping-container barricades around Islamabad and threatened to prosecute individual protesters under a Sept 14 high court order — extraordinary pre-deployment against a march led by the country's most popular political figure, per polls, who remains jailed despite most convictions being overturned on appeal.
Ask SkimNews
