Pakistan Protest Leader Ends Talks With Govt, Reiterates Call for PM to Resign

Fears of Crackdown Grow as Protests Continue

Protests continued in the Pakistani capital city of Islamabad today, with protest leader Imran Khan announcing an end to his talks with the government, saying no more talks would be possible unless Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif agreed to resign and call new elections.

Khan and fellow protest leader Tahrir-ul Qadri have been demanding Sharif resign since the weekend, when the prime minister was charged with multiple counts of murder over the killing of Qadri’s followers in June.

Qadri has suggested he wants a “meaningful dialogue,” but Khan says no such dialogue would be meaningful unless Sharif agreed to resign as a first step.

Pakistan is not a nation with a history of long public protests, as most shows of public dissatisfaction end with a bloody police crackdown, a military coup, or sometimes both. Fears that the Sharif government is moving closer to ordering a forcible end to the protests will continue to grow the longer the situation remains unresolved.

Author: Jason Ditz

Jason Ditz is Senior Editor for Antiwar.com. He has 20 years of experience in foreign policy research and his work has appeared in The American Conservative, Responsible Statecraft, Forbes, Toronto Star, Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Providence Journal, Washington Times, and the Detroit Free Press.