Prime Minister Imran Khan on Friday said that the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) government is seeking reconciliation with some groups of the banned Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and has initiated talks with them to begin the process.
“There are different groups which form the TTP and some of them want to talk to our government for peace. So, we are in talks with them. It’s a reconciliation process,” he said while talking to TRT World.
Can Pakistan PM Imran Khan convince the Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan to lay down arms? Here is what Khan had to say in an exclusive interview to TRT World’s Ali Mustafa in Islamabad pic.twitter.com/sHgWX66A1Y
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Answering a question regarding if the banned TTP groups will lay down arms, the PM said that the government expects the TTP groups to become normal citizens after being pardoned.
However, the PM also conceded to the possibility that the talks might not reach a concrete conclusion. “We might not reach some sort of conclusion or settlement in the end but we are talking,” he said.
The PM also added that the since the talks are taking place in Afghanistan the Afghan Taliban are acting as mediators in the talks between Pakistan government and TTP.
“I am anti-military solution, and as a politician, I believe political dialogue is the way ahead,” the PM added.
Earlier last month, President Arif Alvi had said that the government could consider giving amnesty to those members of TTP who had laid down their arms. These sentiments were also echoed by Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi in an interview on September 15th.
For years, the TTP unleashed deadly attacks on urban centres across Pakistan from their bases along the Afghan border, where they provided shelter to an array of global jihadist groups including Al Qaeda.
But a massive military offensive launched in 2014 largely destroyed the group’s command and control structure, dramatically reducing insurgent violence throughout Pakistan.
Sporadic attacks targeting security forces, however, continue. Just last Sunday, the TTP claimed responsibility for a suicide attack near a Frontier Corps (FC) check post in Quetta in which four paramilitary personnel were martyred and 21 others injured.
PPP SLAMS AMNESTY PROPOSAL
Following President Alvi’s statements PPP Chairman Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari took exception to the federal government’s “unilateral decision” to offer “amnesty” to terrorist groups, terming it an “insult to the victims of terrorism”.
The PPP chairman, in a Twitter post, said that the decision would encourage terrorist groups present in Pakistan.
“The unilateral decision to offer amnesty to terrorist groups within Pakistan is an insult to the thousands of victims of terrorism,” wrote Bilawal.
For Bilawal, Prime Minister Imran Khan’s policy to “appease the religious fascists” in Pakistan and on its Eastern and Western borders will make the country pay the price in the near future.
“Imran’s policy of appeasement to religious fascism within Pakistan as well as on our eastern & western borders will haunt us in [times] to come,” the leader added.
