Peace dialogue: Next round of talks will be final, says TTP interlocutor

Yousaf Shah says government has not demanded release of Prof Ajmal or the sons of ex-PM Gilani and Salmaan Taseer.

PESHAWAR/ BATKHELA/SWAT:

The government has not demanded the release of three high-profile figures believed to be in captivity of the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), Maulana Yousaf Shah, the coordinator of the Taliban intermediary committee, said on Sunday.

It is the media that has been calling for the release of the sons of slain Punjab governor Salmaan Taseer and former premier Yousaf Raza Gilani and Islamia College Vice Chancellor Prof Ajmal Khan.

Similarly, the TTP has also not named their ‘non-combatant’ prisoners to seek their release from government custody. “All those 19 prisoners released by the government are not associated with the Taliban,” Shah told a news conference at the Malakand Press Club. “The third round of peace dialogue will begin soon – and the government has promised to hand over 13 TTP prisoners to the Taliban intermediary committee,” he added. “Most probably, this will be the final round of talks,”



In their last joint meeting, the government negotiating team and the TTP committee had agreed to form a subcommittee to resolve concerns, complaints and reservations from both sides. “The subcommittee will be constituted soon and it will identify the elements conspiring against the peace process.”

Shah claimed that there was a broad consensus among Pakistanis that the use of military force is not an option to restore peace in the country. “Our neighbours have planted their men and tasked them with sabotaging the dialogue process – but they will not succeed,” he said. “Similarly, the elements in our society opposed to talks don’t want peace.”

Separately, Shah said that most of the ‘non-combatants’ the TTP is asking to be freed belong to Swat. “Nearly 350 of them hail from this region,” Shah told a conference organised by his party, the JUI-S, in the Usmanabad area of Swat on Sunday. “All stakeholders – the government, the army and the Taliban – are making sincere efforts for the success of the peace process,” he said. “We are in the decision-making phase, and hopefully positive results would come out.”

Shah said the intermediaries have asked both the government and the TTP to prepare their respective demands for the second face-to-face meeting between the government negotiators and the TTP Political Shura.

Shah, however, admitted that the dialogue process has hit a roadblock. “The deadlock and delay will end soon,” he said. “It’s not a war between two tribes or two families. It’s a decade-long war and it’ll take us some time to resolve it.”

Over in Peshawar, another Taliban intermediary Prof Ibrahim Khan said that the army should either join the peace dialogue or trust the government. “The government has promised to release 13 Taliban ‘non-combatant’ prisoners – but the army has voiced reservations, saying that ‘combatants’ are being released.”

He advised the army to join the peace process – but “if they don’t want to, then they should trust the government”.   He also suggested the army chief and ISI’s director general meet the government negotiators and Taliban intermediaries to share their mind on the dialogue process.

Prof Ibrahim disclosed that they have asked the Taliban to extend the ceasefire and not to attack the security forces. At the same time, he said the military should not use warplanes against tribesfolk.  

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