Pakistan army chief Raheel Sharif called for “meaningful” talks to resolve a week-long political deadlock in a meeting with Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s brother, according to a senior army officer.
Shahbaz Sharif, chief minister of Punjab, met with the army chief today in Rawalpindi, a garrison town near the capital of Islamabad, said the officer, who asked not to be identified because he’s not authorized to speak with the media. The prime minister’s family and the army chief aren’t related.
Thousands of anti-government protesters led by opposition leader Imran Khan are camped outside of the parliament building in Islamabad demanding that Sharif resign. The group says that Sharif has failed to properly investigate complaints of fraud in a national election last year.
A confrontation with security forces would escalate an attempt by Khan and cleric Muhammad Tahir-ul-Qadri to oust Sharif’s 15-month-old government through a show of force on Pakistan’s streets. The demonstration threatens Sharif’s efforts to revive Pakistan’s finances and fight a Taliban insurgency that has killed more than 55,000 people since 2001.
To contact the reporter on this story: Khurrum Anis in Karachi at kkhan14@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Daniel Ten Kate at dtenkate@bloomberg.net Karthikeyan Sundaram
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