Pakistan may finally be edging toward a political breakthrough. After months of unacknowledged contacts, the government and Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), the party of jailed former prime minister Imran Khan, have entered formal talks as the party’s Oct. 4 long march approaches. The opening is fragile. Yet both sides may now be confronting a reality they have long resisted: neither street confrontation nor state coercion can produce a durable political settlement. Pakistan’s crises demand a different course.

Dialogue has not emerged suddenly. Channels between the government and PTI have operated intermittently for at least a year. Rana Sanaullah, the prime minister’s adviser on political affairs, has been the government’s principal interlocutor. Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi has played a parallel and significant role. Given his proximity to the military establishment, his contacts with PTI’s chairman and the party’s leadership in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, the province it governs, represent more than routine ministerial engagement. In practical terms, the conflict’s two main protagonists remain PTI and the establishment.

Naqvi also appears to have developed a working relationship with PTI leaders. One revealing detail came when Khan’s sister sought contempt proceedings, alleging that the government had failed to implement a Supreme Court order directing Khan’s transfer to Shifa International Hospital in Islamabad. The petition named the prime minister, senior ministers and officials, but not the interior minister. It would be unwise to read too much into a legal document. Nevertheless, the........

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