Talks dead, march moving: pro-Imran Khan caravans roll toward Islamabad

ISLAMABAD — Pakistan is bracing for a fresh political confrontation. After a second round of negotiations collapsed at Parliament House on Sunday, supporters of jailed former prime minister Imran Khan set off from the country's northwest toward the capital, reviving a standoff centred on his imprisonment. Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Chief Minister Sohail Afridi flew to Lakki Marwat to launch the first leg of the march from Gandi Chowk on the Peshawar–Karachi Indus Highway. The march is being run in phases: convoys from the province's southern districts were to join at Gandi Chowk, camp near Karak on Sunday night, pick up participants from Kohat and Peshawar over the following days, and gather at Khairabad on October 8, where Afridi said the "next phase" would be announced. The talks, which began on Saturday evening and ran for hours, broke down over access to Khan. The PTI wanted its representatives to meet him and sought his transfer to a hospital where his personal doctors could examine him; the government wanted the party to cancel the march first. Senate Opposition Leader Allama Raja Nasir Abbas emerged to declare a single word to reporters: "Deadlock." Interior Minister of State Tallal Chaudhry, who joined the government delegation, said the breakdown was partly because the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa administration would not assure cooperation on federal anti-militant operations in the PTI-governed province. The government's posture hardened in parallel. Adviser on Political Affairs Rana Sanaullah warned on Sunday that protesters would be stopped at Islamabad's limits and that disorder would be met with lawful force. Authorities had already blocked major highways into the capital with shipping containers and deployed tens of thousands of security personnel. Reuters reported that three of Khan's sisters and hundreds of party activists have been detained in recent days. The march was originally scheduled for September 27 and postponed to October 4 while back-channel talks continued. The PTI's last large-scale protest, two years ago, ended in deadly clashes with security forces — a precedent that hangs over this week's caravans. Khan, 73, a former cricket star ousted by parliament in a 2022 no-confidence vote, has been in jail since 2023 and calls himself a political prisoner. The government insists the cases against him are evidence-based. As the convoys roll toward Islamabad, neither side has shown any sign of blinking.