Finding an interlocutor

PM’s sweet-sounding overture comes barely days after he warned that any attack on army by militants won’t be tolerated

Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has handed the job of opening the line of communication with the militants to a religious luminary better known by the sobriquet ‘Father of the Taliban’. In a meeting with Maulana Samiul Haq, the chief of his own faction of the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam, the prime minister is reported to have requested the elderly cleric to help revive the prospects of dialogue, months after a US drone attack eliminated the TTP chief, Hakimullah Mehsud, and with it torpedoed the nascent talks process.



The prime minister’s sweet-sounding overture comes barely days after he talked tough and warned that any attack on the army by militants won’t be tolerated. This suggests that notwithstanding this development, the government and the army will not take any assault on the military personnel lying down. Taken together, the almost synchronised moves appear part of the state’s carrot-and-stick policy vis-a-vis the ruthless foot soldiers of militancy.

To pick and choose interlocutors for kick-starting negotiations with the militants is in keeping with a resolution passed during an all-party conference held in September 2013. But while Samiul Haq had previously also figured on the government’s preferred list of negotiators, his archrival, Maulana Fazlur Rehman, thought to be himself eyeing the same role, had thrown spanner in the works back then.

Be that as it may, if Samiul Haq can use his influence as a former teacher of the Taliban’s big names to contain the monster of militancy, as he proclaims he can, the government could use his services. In the grim and debilitating struggle against forces of death and destruction, any action that promises breakthrough must be initiated if it has the unqualified support of all stakeholders. In this context, we take note of the cleric’s statement that talks with the TTP can take place on the basis of give and take. If he is this confident, we would like to know what he thinks the TTP will be willing to give up during the talks if, at long last, they actually take place. Without sounding pessimistic at this stage, we cannot help point out that a former spokesperson for the banned outfit has already rebuffed the talks offer.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 2^nd, 2014.

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