Can talk to TTP or separatists, not ‘thieves’, says Imran?

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ISLAMABAD/LAHORE: Expressing his gratitude to the nation for what he called “foiling an international conspiracy” by supporting his candidate, Parvez Elahi, in the recent Punjab chief minister’s election, Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) Chair­man Imran Khan on Wedne­sday ruled out any possibility of sitting down for talks with the ruling coalition.“I can talk to the [Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan], the separatists of Balochistan and Sindh, but not with thieves. Will you speak to someone who robs your home?” he said in his address on Wednesday night, which was being celebrated as a ‘thanksgiving day’ on the call of his party.
“Throughout my life, I have witnessed such enthusiasm only once before, and that was during the 1965 war; at that time, everybody thought that the nation was fighting. And now, I saw the same enthusiasm among the masses during the by-polls in the 20 constituencies of Punjab,” he said.
Insisting that he wanted good relations, even with US — which he accuses of trying to engineer his ouster from power through a conspiracy — but urged the nation to prefer “death to slavery”. “I do not want bad relations with the US, where we export more than any other country and where a large number of the Pakistani community resides. But death is better than slavery and we have to live with self-respect,” he added.
Saying that general elections were the sole solution to the prevailing crises facing the country, brought on by the ineptitude of the government that was imposed on the nation through foreign conspiracy, Mr Khan vowed that once he comes into power again, he would put the country on its own feet and would only ask overseas Pakistanis and not the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for financial assistance.
In his remarks, which sounded like an early election speech, Mr Khan once again expressed a complete lack of trust in the incumbent Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) and Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Sikandar Sultan Raja. He continued to allege that Mr Raja was involved in rigging in the recent by-elections for 20 seats of the provincial assembly, where his party won the bulk of seats…Source: dawn.com/