ALI HUSSAIN

ISLAMABAD: In a major development in the country’s political arena, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif on Thursday called an all-party conference (APC) on February 7 by inviting all the political leadership, including PTI chairman Imran Khan to hold deliberations on the challenges faced by the country, including terrorism and the economic crisis.

According to a statement of the PM Office, the prime minister has decided to invite the political leadership to sit together to exchange views on important national challenges.

The APC will be held in Islamabad on February 7.

The prime minister has also invited PTI chairman Imran Khan to the APC.

Federal Minister for Economic Affairs Sardar Ayaz Sadiq contacted senior PTI leaders including former Speaker National Assembly Asad Qaiser and former Defence Minister Pervez Khattak and extended prime minister’s invitation to the PTI chairman to participate in the APC.

The prime minister also invited two PTI representatives to attend the meeting of the Apex Committee on Counterterrorism to be held at Governor’s House in Peshawar today (Friday).

Ayaz Sadiq has also requested the PTI leaders to convey to the government names of the representatives of the PTI who would be attending the apex committee’s meeting.

According to the statement, all stakeholders, senior officers of police, rangers and senior officers of the county’s intelligence agencies will participate in the apex committee meeting at the Governor’s House.

The meeting will deliberate upon the incident of terrorism that happened in the mosque of Peshawar Police Lines on January 30. It added that the meeting will also consider measures to eradicate terrorism.

The decision was taken in the wake of the recent deadly terrorist attack in Peshawar in which more than 100 people mostly police personnel lost their lives mostly policemen.