Pakistan

Nisar summons joint meeting of govt, Taliban talks committees on Wednesday

A future course of action for the talks is expected to be charted in Wednesday's joint meeting.

Web Desk April 22, 2014

Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan meeting with the Taliban negotiating committee on Saturday. PHOTO: PID

ISLAMABAD: Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan has summoned a joint meeting of the government and Taliban talks committee in Islamabad on Wednesday, Express News reported.

The meeting follows Saturday’s postponed meeting.

It is expected that the meeting will review progress made in talks with the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), so far. Further, a future course of action is also expected to be charted.

Last week, the Taliban formally announced that the ceasefire with the government had ended. The joint committee is expected to review this development as well.

Last week, the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) announced on Wednesday not to extend the ceasefire it had declared on March 1 and extended on April 4 for another six days. The group, however, said that peace talks with the government will continue.

Senior Taliban intermediary Professor Muhammad Ibrahim said that he and his colleagues would encourage the TTP leadership to continue to cease fire. He reiterated that the Taliban have not disengaged from the dialogue process. At the same time, he called upon the government to take steps for bridging the trust gap.

In wake of the ceasefire collapse, the government had decided that the fragile peace talks with TTP will not be ‘open ended’ and alternatives would be explored to deal with militancy if the process fails to achieve the desired results soon, officials said on Sunday.

The decision was taken during the recent meeting of the National Security Committee, which agreed to give peace a chance despite TTP’s announcement to call off their 40-day ceasefire.

A senior official told The Express Tribune that the civil and military leadership would pursue talks with a condition that the process would now have certain timelines. “Some positive outcome has to be achieved sooner than later because time is running out,” said the official while requesting anonymity.