On the last day of 2013, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif rushed to mend broken communication links with the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), naming influential cleric Maulana Samiul Haq on Tuesday as the government’s point man and ice-breaker in the proposed negotiations.
The overture came nearly two months after the TTP leader Hakeemullah Mehsud was killed in a US drone attack on a North Waziristan compound. With Mehsud’s death, the dialogue process that the government intended to initiate with the militant outfit also collapsed.
Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif earlier met Maulana Samiul Haq and appealed for his assistance in bringing the Taliban to the negotiating table. However, officials neither confirmed nor denied the development.
The Taliban quickly rebuffed the government overture, saying it was not ready to engage in peace negotiations. It also questioned the credentials of the JUI-S leader and by extension his rival faction leader Maulana Fazlur Rehman as interlocutors.
Haq, the chief of his own faction of Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam, who wields some influence over the Taliban, had a one-on-one meeting with the prime minister.
Opening a channel of communication with the Taliban was at the top of their meeting’s agenda. Sources said Haq assured the premier that he would use his influence to ensure that the peace process gathered steam and headed in the right direction.
The prime minister has resumed a series of political consultations with leading political and religious luminaries in order to kick-start the negotiations process with the militants.
On Tuesday, Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan also indicated that headway could be expected in negotiations with the Taliban in the coming days.
During his meeting with the JUI-S chief, PM Nawaz took Maulana Samiullah into confidence over the recent military action in the Waziristan region and invited him to get personally involved in the Taliban dialogue process.
Haq said that he would help to try and resolve the issue and that the core issue would be putting an end to drone strikes. Just 24 hours earlier, Prime Minister ordered officials to speed up the process of framing and promulgating anti-terror laws in the country.
JUI-F’s objections
Earlier in the year, the PML-N government had also invited Maulana Samiul Haq for facilitating the government’s peace negotiations with the Taliban. But the government later dropped his name from its preferred list of facilitators for the talks when the JUI-F chief’s voiced his reservations
The all parties conference had reposed confidence in the efforts of the prime minister and called upon the federal government “to initiate the dialogue with all stakeholders forthwith and for this purpose, authorise it to take all necessary steps as it may deem fit, including development of an appropriate mechanism and identification of the interlocutors.”
However, the implementation of last resolution hit snags when a US drone strike killed TTP chief Hakimullah Mehsud, hours before a government delegation was scheduled to formally invite Taliban for the talks.
Published in The Express Tribune, January 1st, 2014.
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TTP will never come to negotiating table if drone attacks continue and we don,t protest against it strongly in words and deeds.On the one hand we threaten them with military operation and show our determination to crush them by force and on the other hand we invite them to negotiate. It is just to irritate them . We should show our full sincerity for negotiation and convince them that we want to solve this problem with peaceful talks.we have to do our best to avoid war at any cost. Our enemy will be very happy if our army is entangled in civil or gorrilla warfare. They are closely watching the situation and will try to make the most of it . Our nuclear capability is like a thorn in their eyes. They will give full support to to these elements with arms and ammunitions. Military operation should be last resort when all our most sincere efforts fail .and there is no choice. but we should remember that even the best army of the world finds it difficult to fight with its own people . I hope we can tame militants with tact and diplomacy.Our leader ship should rise up to the occasion and accept the challenge with courage and determination. it should hear the voice of reason We should not repeat the mistake we made in East Pakistan now Bangla desh..