Peace process: Direct talks venue to be finalised within 24 hours

Yousaf Shah says TTP is still awaiting reply from govt over ‘non-combatant’ lists.

MANSEHRA:

The venue for face-to-face talks between the government and the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan will be finalised within the next 24 hours, the coordinator of the TTP intermediary committee Maulana Yousaf Shah said on Thursday.

“The [government and Taliban] committees have achieved their goal of persuading the sides to meet at a jointly-agreed venue, which will be announced within the next 24 hours,” he told reporters at the residence of JUI-S leader Qazi Rafiqur Rehman in Mansehra.

Shah said the TTP was still awaiting a reply from the interior ministry over the list of ‘non-combatant’ Taliban prisoners it had handed to the government. Terming their release a crucial step for moving the peace process forward, he said the move would help build the Taliban’s confidence.

Responding to a question, he rejected the impression that the Taliban were demanding the enforcement of Shariah all over Pakistan. “The Taliban have made no such demand… it has been constructed by the media,” he said, adding that the ‘demands’ moved by the militant group were ‘suggestions, not conditions’.



At the same time, however, the TTP intermediary said the enforcement of Shariah in the country was already mandated by the Constitution and was a part of several political parties’ manifestos.

In reply to another question, Shah said that although the peace process hit deadlock twice in the past, the ‘sagaciousness’ of the government and Taliban committees had led them to a point where the two sides have agreed to meet each other directly.

He appreciated the role Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf chief Imran Khan and the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa government played in promoting dialogue. “They were sincere about establishing peace through talks throughout the whole process,” he said.

“Enemies of peace, based within the country and abroad, are hatching conspiracies against the ongoing peace process… they are hell bent on making sure these negotiations fail,” Shah said. “But the government and Taliban must exercise restraint in order to bring lasting peace in the country,” he added.

“The people of Pakistan yearn for a peaceful and prosperous life even more than the provision of electricity and water.”

Published in The Express Tribune, March 21^st, 2014.