Gandapur offers to lead talks with Afghan Taliban

Claims he will sit with Taliban supreme leader Akhundzada if given the task

ISLAMABAD:

As terror rocks the province, Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (K-P) Chief Minister Ali Amin Gandapur has urged the federal government to formally entrust him with the responsibility of negotiating with the Afghan Taliban, asserting that dialogue was the only viable path to peace in the region.

Speaking to journalists in Islamabad on Friday, Gandapur said that his government had formulated a peace plan in consultation with tribal advisors from all agencies and submitted it to the Foreign Office and the Interior Ministry.

However, he lamented that the proposal remained unanswered. "The Taliban cannot refuse talks with tribal elders. Bring them to the table—negotiations are the only solution," he added.

"I will hold talks with [Taliban supreme leader Haibatullah] Akhunzada."

"Right now, I have no contact with the Taliban, but if I am sent, we will make it work," he added. He also took a jibe at JUI-F chief Maulana Fazlur Rehman, claiming that his influence over the Taliban had waned and that only lower-level Taliban leaders engaged with him.

"Sit with Taliban across the table, hold talks with them, it is the only solution," K-P CM asserted.

Gandapur pointed out that the cleric-politician outnumbered all other political parties in holding public rallies in K-P ahead of the 2024 elections. "We were hiding in the mountains before the elections. We did not hold any rally," he said.

Earlier, addressing an Iftar party hosted by him, Gandapur said his province has come out of the financial crisis. K-P has a surplus of Rs159 billion, while Punjab has been facing a Rs148 billion deficit. "We have introduced transparency in the province," he added.

Brushing aside corruption allegations, he quipped that if the province was in surplus after corruption, such corruption should be adopted by all other provinces.