Peace talks: Petition seeks orders against negotiations with Taliban

Says CM, speaker must be de-notified for violating oath.

PESHAWAR: A petition filed at the Peshawar High Court (PHC) has sought immediate orders to the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (K-P) government to desist from initiating peace talks with the Taliban.

The petitioner Shahid Orakzai, a Rawalpindi resident, requested the PHC declare K-P Chief Minister Pervez Khattak and Speaker K-P Assembly Asad Qaisar in violation of the oath which they took under the Representation of People Act 1976. The petition asked the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) de-notify the assembly speaker and chief minister.

The petition, a copy of which is available with The Express Tribune, reads the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam (Sami-ul-Haq group) disclosed in a television interview that Khattak and Qaisar approached him to initiate political dialogue with an organisation called the ‘Taliban’.

“The organisation is not registered as a political party under the Political Parties Order (PPO) 2002 and is operating in violation of Article 256 [no private organisation capable of functioning as a military organisation shall be formed, and any such organisation shall be illegal]”, the petition highlighted.



Orakzai has requested the court to ask Khattak and Qaisar to produce results of any referendum held in the province or the country where the majority of the people decided to call off the war.

It said Khattak is bound to ensure that the executive authority of the province does not breach federal laws as emphasised by Article 148 of the Constitution and that their (both Khattak and Qaisar) will to compromise Pakistan’s sovereignty to masked insurgents is in breach of their oath.

The petitioner has requested the court to refrain the two men from contacting any person in or outside Pakistan who offers himself as an intermediary with any group at war with the armed forces of Pakistan.

The same petitioner had also challenged possible peace talks with the Taliban on March 12.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 7^th, 2013.