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Taliban talks prospects dead: Nisar
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan on Monday admitted a deadlock in the proposed talks with Taliban following a US drone attack that killed Hakimullah Mehsud. “The government of Pakistan‚ its armed forces and the Taliban will not be responsible [of the repercussions], if the United States again sabotages the peace process,” warned Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan in a policy statement at the floor of National Assembly prior to a formal discussion of the House on the situation after the recent drone attack.
However, he made it clear that the government would not take any step that could lead to compromise the very existence of the country. Nisar accused the US of sabotaging the peace process, saying that the latest drone attack was made at a time when ‘great breakthrough’ was achieved following extensive efforts of seven weeks to initiate the formal peace talks — a challenging phase of the process.
He said that the US targeted the TTP chief at a time when a three-member Ulema delegation was due to take off for a meeting with leadership of those Taliban groups that had shown willingness to hold dialogue.
Admitting ‘severe’ tension between Pakistan and the US following the incident, the Interior Minister said the government would implement in letter and spirit “what political leadership will decide is in the best interest of the country.”
“It’s clear that my recent press conference has created a ‘severe’ tension with Untied States, while on the other hand, the TTP spokesman is issuing harsh threatening statements,” he said, adding that this caused a deadlock in the proposed talks with the Taliban, which may take time to reinitiate at least till nomination of new chief of the banned TTP.
However, he added that the government would continue to make efforts to keep the dialogue process intact in a positive manner in consultations with the political leadership. He said drone attacks were not only a source of fear for the whole nation, but were also bringing a ‘bad name’ to a nuclear state, adding that the political leadership had given mandate for holding the peace talks with the Taliban on September 09, 2013 during an All-Parties Conference (APC) but the US destroyed all the ground work through a drone strike.
According to him, there are 37 groups that come under the umbrella of TTP, but all are not bound to follow the TTP discipline. About 50 to 70 militant groups operate within the country with different names and out of the total, 14 are effective.
Updating the House on the government efforts towards initiating formal talk process, he said that in the last two weeks, a great breakthrough was achieved and the government had sent a message to the Taliban three days prior to the killing of Hakimullah Mehsud that it wanted to send a delegation of Ulema to meet with the leadership of those groups that were identified for peace talks, but the process was sabotaged.
He said the government was going to hold talks with good intention and even discouraged some militant groups that were willing to separately hold dialogue so as to negate the impression that the government was sowing any division within the TTP.
Without going into further details to reveal the elements behind some of the attacks that took place following the APC, Nisar said that enough evidence was collected to ascertain those who were responsible for the attacks such as Peshawar church carnage, Qisakhwani Bazaar bomb blast and the attack in which a bus of the employees of Peshawar Secretariat was targeted.
Initiating the debate, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) chief Imran Khan announced that his government in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa would stop NATO supplies in the province in protest against drone attacks.
He called upon the government to convey to the US in clear terms that the government will block the NATO supplies and go to the UN Security Council if drone strikes continued.
Terming the situation ‘a defining moment’ for the nation, Imran appealed to all political parties to sink their differences and come on the same page to give an effective response to the situation arising out of drone strikes and attempts to damage dialogue process with Taliban.
Appreciating the efforts of Interior Minister to keep intact the dialogue process, the PTI chief also questioned: “is there any guarantee that there will be no further drone strikes if the dialogue process is initiated again and what will be the response of the government if the US again makes such attempts to derail the process.”
He also asked why the Prime Minister, in his recent meeting with US President Obama, failed to make it clear that there should be no drone strike during the talk process with the Taliban. “We’ve to decide whether the US is a friend or a foe,” he said, adding that the latest drone strike was an attack on peace process and ‘peace jirga’.
About the damages caused by the on-going war on terror, he said that it was not “our war rather Pakistan has to bear $100 billion loss while 50,000 of our people have been killed during the war that was imposed on the country.” He said launching a military operation in tribal areas was virtually the same as sending troops to the then East Pakistan. Criticizing the former military dictator Gen Musharraf’s decision to join the US-led war on terror; he said, it was shameful that Musharraf himself admitted in his book that he sent troops to tribal areas on US insistence for the sake of dollars.
Source for this news
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan on Monday admitted a deadlock in the proposed talks with Taliban following a US drone attack that killed Hakimullah Mehsud. “The government of Pakistan‚ its armed forces and the Taliban will not be responsible [of the repercussions], if the United States again sabotages the peace process,” warned Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan in a policy statement at the floor of National Assembly prior to a formal discussion of the House on the situation after the recent drone attack.
However, he made it clear that the government would not take any step that could lead to compromise the very existence of the country. Nisar accused the US of sabotaging the peace process, saying that the latest drone attack was made at a time when ‘great breakthrough’ was achieved following extensive efforts of seven weeks to initiate the formal peace talks — a challenging phase of the process.
He said that the US targeted the TTP chief at a time when a three-member Ulema delegation was due to take off for a meeting with leadership of those Taliban groups that had shown willingness to hold dialogue.
Admitting ‘severe’ tension between Pakistan and the US following the incident, the Interior Minister said the government would implement in letter and spirit “what political leadership will decide is in the best interest of the country.”
“It’s clear that my recent press conference has created a ‘severe’ tension with Untied States, while on the other hand, the TTP spokesman is issuing harsh threatening statements,” he said, adding that this caused a deadlock in the proposed talks with the Taliban, which may take time to reinitiate at least till nomination of new chief of the banned TTP.
However, he added that the government would continue to make efforts to keep the dialogue process intact in a positive manner in consultations with the political leadership. He said drone attacks were not only a source of fear for the whole nation, but were also bringing a ‘bad name’ to a nuclear state, adding that the political leadership had given mandate for holding the peace talks with the Taliban on September 09, 2013 during an All-Parties Conference (APC) but the US destroyed all the ground work through a drone strike.
According to him, there are 37 groups that come under the umbrella of TTP, but all are not bound to follow the TTP discipline. About 50 to 70 militant groups operate within the country with different names and out of the total, 14 are effective.
Updating the House on the government efforts towards initiating formal talk process, he said that in the last two weeks, a great breakthrough was achieved and the government had sent a message to the Taliban three days prior to the killing of Hakimullah Mehsud that it wanted to send a delegation of Ulema to meet with the leadership of those groups that were identified for peace talks, but the process was sabotaged.
He said the government was going to hold talks with good intention and even discouraged some militant groups that were willing to separately hold dialogue so as to negate the impression that the government was sowing any division within the TTP.
Without going into further details to reveal the elements behind some of the attacks that took place following the APC, Nisar said that enough evidence was collected to ascertain those who were responsible for the attacks such as Peshawar church carnage, Qisakhwani Bazaar bomb blast and the attack in which a bus of the employees of Peshawar Secretariat was targeted.
Initiating the debate, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) chief Imran Khan announced that his government in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa would stop NATO supplies in the province in protest against drone attacks.
He called upon the government to convey to the US in clear terms that the government will block the NATO supplies and go to the UN Security Council if drone strikes continued.
Terming the situation ‘a defining moment’ for the nation, Imran appealed to all political parties to sink their differences and come on the same page to give an effective response to the situation arising out of drone strikes and attempts to damage dialogue process with Taliban.
Appreciating the efforts of Interior Minister to keep intact the dialogue process, the PTI chief also questioned: “is there any guarantee that there will be no further drone strikes if the dialogue process is initiated again and what will be the response of the government if the US again makes such attempts to derail the process.”
He also asked why the Prime Minister, in his recent meeting with US President Obama, failed to make it clear that there should be no drone strike during the talk process with the Taliban. “We’ve to decide whether the US is a friend or a foe,” he said, adding that the latest drone strike was an attack on peace process and ‘peace jirga’.
About the damages caused by the on-going war on terror, he said that it was not “our war rather Pakistan has to bear $100 billion loss while 50,000 of our people have been killed during the war that was imposed on the country.” He said launching a military operation in tribal areas was virtually the same as sending troops to the then East Pakistan. Criticizing the former military dictator Gen Musharraf’s decision to join the US-led war on terror; he said, it was shameful that Musharraf himself admitted in his book that he sent troops to tribal areas on US insistence for the sake of dollars.
Source for this news
