Pakistan’s opposition leader, who is also their Prime Minister face, Shehbaz Sharif on Sunday said that peace talks with India will only be possible if the Kashmir issue is resolved. The Pakistan Muslim League (N) leader also said that the new cabinet would be formed in consultation with members of the opposition .

Imran Khan was ousted as the Pakistan PM early Sunday after the opposition managed to get theri no-confidence motion pushed with 174 votes in the 342-member National Assembly. The cricketer turned politician became the first premier to lose the no-trust vote. The motions failed respectively against former PMs Benazir Bhutto in 1989 and Shaukat Aziz in 2006. 

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The PML, hours after the vote, announced that Sharif will be their PM face. Khan’s party, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), nominated 65-year-old former foreign minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi as its candidate for the premier’s post. 

Speaking to Geo News in Islamabad, Sharif said, “My first priority is national harmony. We want peace with India, but peace is not possible without resolution of the Kashmir issue.”

“I would start a new era in the country and promote mutual respect,” former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s brother added. 

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He was also asked to comment on Nawaz Sharif’s return and case. The PM face said that his brother’s  case would be dealt with according to law.

Meanwhile, ousted Pakistan PM Imran Khan tweeted for the first time since the no-confidence vote. He said that the country’s freedom struggle begins today. 

“Pakistan became an independent state in 1947; but the freedom struggle begins again today against a foreign conspiracy of regime change. It is always the people of the country who defend their sovereignty & democracy,” Imran Khan tweeted. 

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Earlier, Sharif had said that he doesn’t want to ‘go back to bitterness of the past’. 

“We want to forget them and move forward. We will not take revenge or do injustice; we will not send people to jail for no reason, law and justice will take its course,” Sharif, who also served as the chief minister of Punjab province, said after the vote.