The writer has criticised those who argue against negotiations with the Taliban.
LAHORE: This is with reference to Rasul Bakhsh Rais’s article “Dialogue with the Taliban” of October 15. The writer has criticised those who argue against negotiations with the Taliban. In favour of his argument that there should be talks with the Taliban, he has quoted the example of the UK- IRA negotiations. However, this ignores the fact that the IRA was an ethnic militant group and did not have a religious expansionist agenda like the TTP. Its demand was right of self-determination.
The writer also says that the “no-talks crowd” has made an irrational assumption that just because the Taliban are driven by religious fanaticism, talking to them is useless. To support that point he says that no state has taken a position of no-talks with the militants. This can be countered using Russia’s example which has had a zero tolerance policy against militants on its soil.
Then he wrote that there cannot and will never be a compromise on democracy, the Constitution or the territorial sovereignty of the state. Clearly, we all know that the TTP rejects all these things.
Ali Raza Gilani
Published in The Express Tribune, October 21st, 2013.
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