Islamabad: Due to claims of government meddling and limitations on the party’s access to its imprisoned leader, Imran Khan, negotiations between the Pakistani government and opposition groups, especially PTI, have come to a standstill, Dawn said.

The PTI founder’s sister, Aleema Khan, recently said that the former prime minister received an offer to relocate from the Adiala Jail in Rawalpindi to his Banigala home under house arrest.

Aleema Khan said in a statement on Tuesday that her brother had received many offers via Ali Amin Gandapur, the chief minister of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. She said that these proposals included the condition that Imran Khan keep quiet, maybe in return for house detention. But she wondered how her brother, who had been incarcerated for so long, could agree to such a bargain.

Both the PTI and the government rejected an official offer last week to move Imran Khan to Banigala or anywhere else. The already heated environment surrounding the discussions has been made worse by Aleema’s assertions.

As negotiations with the government continue, PTI negotiators have been advocating for “unmonitored access” to their leader despite the high risks of these talks. PTI officials met with Imran Khan on Tuesday after the resumption of talks in late December, but they expressed dissatisfaction with the terms, especially the purported monitoring of the meeting space.

According to PTI leader Omar Ayub, the team had explicitly asked for unmonitored access, but the request had been turned down by government officials. According to Ayub, the presence of surveillance gear made it difficult for them to have an honest conversation with the imprisoned commander. Additionally, PTI interim chairman Barrister Gohar Ali Khan emphasized the need to ease tensions and urged the government not to use the opposition’s refusal to submit written requests as a point of contention.

The release of political prisoners and the establishment of a judicial commission to look into the violence were the two primary demands that PTI had previously made on May 9 and November 26. According to Dawn, Barrister Salman Akram Raja voiced his displeasure with the government’s unwillingness to provide Imran Khan unfettered access, calling it a sign of dubious government motives.

To address what he considers to be cruel treatment in prison, Imran Khan has resorted to the legal system. The former prime minister accused prison officials of depriving him of fundamental rights under the jail handbook and associated legislation in a plea submitted to the Special Judge Central Court in Islamabad. Imran Khan’s legal team listed a number of complaints in his appeal, including the denial of his personal doctor’s appointments and the limitation on his weekly phone calls to his children in the UK. His inability to access television, newspapers, or reading materials was also brought up in the appeal.

The former prime minister was further isolated from the outside world, according to the legal team representing him.

Imran Khan has said that the government is persecuting him for political reasons, saying that their measures were intended to erode his will and keep him from participating in politics.

In accordance with the jail manual’s guidelines, the petition asked the court to order jail officials to let the imprisoned leader contact his kids, get medical care from his own physician, and re-establish television access.

In a separate case, the pre-arrest bail requests of Imran Khan and his spouse, Bushra Bibi, were recently postponed till January 28 by the Additional Sessions Court in Islamabad. Charges pertaining to the demonstrations that took place in the nation’s capital are at issue in these instances.

The court approved Bushra Bibi’s legal team’s plea to be excused from physically attending the sessions throughout the process. According to Dawn, the court affirmed that all bail requests—including Mr. Khan’s—would be taken into account together at the next hearing.

The PTI leader’s video attendance will be necessary for the next hearing, the court further affirmed. The result of continuing legal actions and political agreements is yet unknown, which further complicates Pakistan’s already difficult political environment.