Former interior minister and Awami Muslim League Chief Sheikh Rasheed Ahmed on Sunday ruled out the option of any talks without the date for new elections.

“Dialogues were being held between the PTI leadership and ‘Establishment’ and they were close to an agreement,” the former interior minister revealed while speaking exclusively on Aaj News program Ru Baru with the host Shaukat Paracha.

“For now there is the only big issue and that is to announce the date of the election,” he said adding that it was the only issue that had not been agreed upon and there was a deadlock between both sides over it.

The interior minister hoped that things, whether in favor of PTI or against it, would be decided by next month.

Earlier in the day, while talking to the media in Banigala outside Imran Khan’s residence after attending the core committee meeting of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), Rasheed said that former prime minister Imran Khan’s arrest would be a foolish step, adding that it would lead the country to the chaos and Interior Minister Rana Sanaullah would be responsible for it.

Rasheed’s statement came after the interior minister in a tweet said that Imran Khan had been nominated as a suspect in over more than two dozen cases and that the security officials deployed outside Imran Khan’s would arrest him on the expiry of the protective bail granted him by the court.

Lashing out at the government for elongated power outages in the country, Rasheed wished that the Prime Minister’s House also face the same sort of load-shedding.