ISLAMABAD, Pakistan: The Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-Fazl (JUI-F) Chief Maulana Fazlur Rehman called on Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif in Islamabad on Wednesday and discussed matters relating to resignations of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) from the Parliament.
The sources said that Maulana Fazlur Rehman briefed the prime minister about the talks he held with the MQM leadership in Karachi yesterday and the progress made in this regard.
The JUI-F apprised the prime minister of reservations the MQM has about the Karachi operation and told Sharif that the MQM wants the formation of a Monitoring Committee to look after the operation.
Last week, the lawmakers belonging to the MQM resigned from both Houses of the Parliament and the Sindh assembly as a protest against the ongoing Rangers-led operation in Karachi which the party terms as ‘anti-MQM’.
Later, the prime minister assigned a task to the JUI-F Chief of persuading the MQM lawmakers to withdraw their resignations and continue to play their positive role in the Parliament.
The JUI-F Chief on Tuesday visited the MQM nine zero headquarters in Karachi to convince the party to withdraw resignations of its legislators. However, his mission remain unfinished because talks were halted after the MQM leader Rashid Godil was shot in Karachi’s Bahadurabad area.
But the two sides agreed to continue the dialogue process over the MQM resignation issue and announced that the next round of talks on the issue would be held in Islamabad.
In a joint press conference after the talks, the Maulana Fazlur Rehman expressed the hope that talks initiated with the MQM on the resignations issue would bear fruit.
The MQM leader Farooq Sattar in his remarks also described the talks having witnessed a positive progress.
