The first step

Although peace process has made unprecedented progress, government must not let excitement cloud extreme caution.

After much back and forth, the government committee finally met face to face with members of the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) — and this is a significant development despite no overtly concrete announcement being made after the meeting.



Firstly, that the meeting actually took place means a major hurdle in the way of peace process has been addressed — that of trust deficit. One is reluctant to say that this hurdle has been completely overcome, because it was the government that went the extra mile by travelling to a place that would essentially have been of the TTP’s choosing — given that the government committee members are said to have travelled to the spot in vehicles provided by the TTP. By doing this, the government put its negotiators at risk and now the TTP will have to show similar trust in the government because building trust is effectively a quid-pro-quo process. Secondly, the importance of the reported inclusion of an official of the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) cannot be stressed enough. There were plenty of murmurs behind the scenes that the military and the intelligence services were not on board when the peace process was initiated by Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif. This not only raised questions over the negotiation process — both in the public and by the TTP themselves — but also gave rise to talk of a rift between Rawalpindi and Islamabad. That a colonel-level ISI officer was present at the meeting is a welcome gesture by the military and will bolster the process.

As for what came out of the meeting, reports suggest that the TTP linked a ceasefire extension to “tangible progress” in the talks. Ostensibly, they mean the release of non-combatant prisoners allegedly in the custody of security forces and stopping action against the TTP and associated groups. This is a tricky situation. The government has already made its gesture — travelling to the TTP Shura and trusting them with the committee’s safety — and it is not unreasonable to expect an extension in the ceasefire prima facie. All said, though the process has undeniably made substantial and unprecedented progress, the government must not get carried away and let excitement cloud extreme caution. Trading in slow but sustainable progress for quick but short-term gains would be perilous.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 28^th, 2014.

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