— Durrani’s diplomacy also had helped release of Shehbaz Sharif in year 2022
— Durrani and Alvi worked together for Shaukat Khanum Hospital donations
ISLAMABAD: In a dramatic move, former information minister Senator Mohammad Ali Durrani held a quiet meeting with President Dr Arif Alvi and discussed with him the “matters of mutual interest”.
The meeting was important in the background of two previous meetings held in the presidency which failed to yield any positive results.
While Presidency did not issue any press statement about the meeting, however, sources privy to the meeting details said that Senator Durrani met President Alvi “with a message of political reconciliation and harmony” in the country.
“Senator Durrani is an old friend of Dr Alvi and both have worked together to support Imran Khan’s campaign to collect donations for Shaukat Khanum Memorial Hospital from 1992-1996. Today’s meeting was held in a very pleasant manner and both the old comrades exchanged pleasantries besides agreeing to the need of promotion of reconciliation and harmony in the country,” a source close to Senator Durrani told this scribe.
The source said that Senator Durrani told President Alvi to play his role in bringing down political temperature so as the ailing economy of the country could be restored.
“Both the leaders agreed that political temperatures should be brought down and political reconciliation should be given a chance. More such meetings would be held in next few days to help normalise the political tensions,” the source said.
Asked whether there was any proposal under discussion to normalise tensions and former prime minister Imran Khan could be released, the source said that it was quite “premature” to talk about such an opening as the meeting was just an “ice-melting” move and future discussions may help decide such crucial matters.
Though there was no official conformation of the meeting, well-placed sources told Pakistan Today that Senator Durrani’s car entered Presidency around 12:40pm and came out at 2:10pm. Pakistan Today was also able to obtain official photograph of the meeting held between Senator Durrani and Dr Alvi.
Senator Durrani is a senior politician and has served as Minister for Information and Broadcasting; and Minister of State for Culture and Youth Affairs. He has close links with the military establishment and these days he is senior vice president of Pir Pagaro-led PML-F.
In the recent past, it was none other than Senator Durrani who had held meetings with Shehbaz Sharif who was in jail in year 2021-22 when Imran Khan was Prime Minister of Pakistan. Later, Durrani also had met with Maulana Fazlur Rehman and these meetings had helped release Shehbaz Sharif and later he became Prime Minister of Pakistan.
