President Dr Arif Alvi expressing strong concern over the state of the national economy has stressed that the political parties need to hold talks by rising above their differences.<\/p>\n
In an exclusive interview with BBC, the president termed it crucial to \u2018lower the political heat\u2019 to avoid further deterioration of the economic situation in the country.<\/p>\n
President Alvi urged negotiations among \u201call stakeholders\u201d, including the ruling coalition government and Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI). He said differences were part of democracy, however, it was crucial for all to make united efforts to save the country from economic collapse.<\/p>\n
\u201cI am not insisting about [holding talks with] PTI chief Imran Khan, but at least the political parties should hold discussions, and after that, the leaders can also meet,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
He mentioned that in an earlier consultation, Imran Khan had expressed satisfaction over the nomination of General Asim Munir as army chief. He, however, said that he was not \u2018brokering any dialogue\u2019 between Imran Khan and the current army leadership.<\/p>\n
Calling 2023 an election year, the president said the political parties should also negotiate about it whether to hold the polls sooner or later, plus or minus a few months.<\/p>\n
The president said that he had been personally making efforts to reduce tension among stakeholders and termed social media \u201ca major reason\u201d behind the differences between Imran Khan and former army chief General Qamar Javed Bajwa.<\/p>\n
He said undue importance paid to social media resulted in misunderstandings and pointed out that \u201cdecision-making elements\u201d in the country failed to effectively handle social media.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have been trying to bring people together to help them end their mistrust, and I will continue to do so. It is my constitutional responsibility to keep the federation united,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
President Dr Arif Alvi expressing strong concern over the state of the national economy has stressed that the political parties need to hold talks by rising above their differences. In an exclusive interview with BBC, the president termed it crucial to \u2018lower the political heat\u2019 to avoid further deterioration of the economic situation in the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":245545,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[2],"tags":[8603],"class_list":{"0":"post-306971","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-top-news","8":"tag-alvi"},"yoast_head":"\n