TTP committee conveys requests to Taliban shura

Coordinator of Taliban committee Maulana Yousaf Shah says positive response is expected.

PESHAWAR: Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) committee member Maulana Samiul Haq conveyed some of the committee's requests to TTP's political shura, the coordinator of the Taliban committee Maulana Yousaf Shah told Express News on Wednesday.

Shah said that the shura has asked for some time to respond to these requests.

He stated that details about the requests cannot be revealed at this time, adding that the nation will be kept in the loop about the shura's response.

On February 24, government negotiators had an ‘informal’ meeting with the TTP intermediaries, even though the peace process remains suspended.

Rustam Shah Mohmand, a member of the government’s four-member negotiating committee, had confirmed to The Express Tribune that the two sides met ‘informally’ in the presence of Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan.

The government team had repeated its stance that the stalled dialogue would be resumed only after the TTP declared an unconditional ceasefire and stopped all hostilities. In return, the government had also promised ‘some positive gestures’.

This was the first contact between the two sides after the government suspended the peace process in reaction to the slaying of 23 paramilitary Frontier Corps troops by the Mohmand chapter of the TTP on February 17.

Correction: An earlier version of this story stated that Maulana Yousaf Shah is the chief of JUI-S. The error is regretted.