Cleric leading protest calls on Pakistani leader to negotiate January 17, 2013 -- Updated 0932 GMT (1732 HKT) Tahir ul Qadri calls on the government to hold talks with him Thursday He says this will mark the end of the protest in central Islamabad He doesn't say what he will do if the government doesn't respond He has called for a caretaker administration to replace the current government Islamabad (CNN) -- The Muslim cleric leading tens of thousands of Pakistanis in an anti-government demonstration in the center of Islamabad called on the country's president to negotiate with him on Thursday. Tahir ul Qadri, the cleric, said President Asif Ali Zardari had until 3 p.m. local time (5 a.m. ET) to come to the area occupied by his legions of supporters near the national parliament. "Today is the last day for the sit in, I am giving the government till 3 p.m. to negotiate with us," he said. There will be no sit in tomorrow. Qadri didn't say what course of action he would take if the Zardari didn't come to meet him. The large protest has brought the center of the Pakistani capital to a standstill this week and severely jolted Pakistan's already volatile political scene ahead of national elections due later this year. Qadri has called for the current government to be dissolved and replaced by a caretaker administration, with input from the judiciary and military. The government has so far flatly rejected his demands. Adding to the instability, the Supreme Court on Tuesday ordered the arrest of Prime Minister Raja Pervez Ashraf and a number of other officials in connection with a long-running corruption case.