Stakeholders speak out: TTP reluctant to accept interlocutors’ truce call

Prof Ibrahim says Taliban respect constitution; TTP spokesman maintains war and talks cannot coexist.

PESHAWAR/ ISLAMABAD:

As Taliban intermediary Professor Ibrahim guaranteed the faction’s respect for Pakistan’s constitution, Tehreek-e-Taliban (TTP) de facto spokesperson Shahidullah Shahid said that the dialogue process cannot go hand-in-hand with the ongoing operation against militants.

In an address to a tribal peace jirga organised by his party to call for an extension of ceasefire on Thursday, Jamaat-e-Islami’s (JI) provincial chief Ibrahim said, “We can give a surety of the Taliban’s respect for the country’s constitution. But the government must implement the Islamic clauses of the constitution.”

In his Nishtar Hall address to about 1,000 tribal elders from various political parties from across Federally Administered Tribal Areas (Fata), he said the TTP intermediaries have arranged a meeting between the government and the TTP core committees which will help restore trust between the two sides.



As the main stakeholders in the whole process are the army and the Taliban, they are requested to continue the ceasefire for the sake of peace, Ibrahim said.

Meanwhile, the Pakistani Taliban on Thursday said that “talks and war cannot go together” and that they are ready to face “any situation’.

“The government on one hand says it wants dialogue but on the other it has adopted the politics of threats,” Shahidullah Shahid said, adding that operations are being intensified against the group across the country. “The government could not stop the large scale operations by security forces.”

The spokesman criticised the government for being “powerless” in the dialogue process, and said the Taliban are not sure whether to hold talks with the government or military institutions.

“The army has imposed unjustified war on the people in the Babar and Shaktoi areas of South Waziristan for two days,” the spokesman said in a statement issued a day after the army chief, General Raheel Sharif asked militants to unconditionally accept the constitution.

“Relatives of the missing persons, who are languishing in the secret torture cells of the Inter-Services Intelligence, are being subjected to violence on roads. This situation can’t provide the environment for meaningful and serious dialogue,” he added.

“The TTP has made it clear that it is willing to talk for the interest of Islam and Muslims of Pakistan. But we would not accept the dialogue to be used as a political tool and to pursue war tactics,” he said.

He also said that the government has not shown any seriousness since the talks have started despite the group’s “gift” of a 45-day ceasefire.

On the contrary, coordinator of TTP’s negotiating committee Maulana Yousaf Shah in his address to the jirga said, “People are satisfied with the dialogue process; however, some internal and external forces are trying to derail it. The committees are trying their best and will offer any sacrifice for its success.”

The jirga’s unanimous statement termed the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (Fata) a “land without a constitution” and demanded the extension of political, legal and constitutional rights to the tribal areas.

Addressing the congregation, JI chief Sirajul Haq strongly opposed the use of force in pursuing peace. “We cannot fight a war with our own people as peace can only be restored through a peaceful way,” he said. Haq added it was essential that tribal people be treated at par with the rest of the country if the dialogue process is to succeed. “The restoration of tribesmen’s trust is even more important than the country’s atomic bomb,” said Haq.

A longstanding demand of tribesmen has been the abolishment of the ‘draconian’ Frontier Crimes Regulation (FCR) that governs the region. “If FCR is such a good piece of legislation that it cannot be done away with, why is it not enforced in Islamabad,” questioned Haq.

The JI chief said the country is passing through very difficult times with rampant religious extremism and intolerance. “Even in an Islamic country like ours, mosques, religious seminaries and bearded men have been declared as symbols of terrorism,” he lamented.

Chief of Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-Sami and member of the Taliban’s negotiation committee, Maulana Samiul Haq, told participants of the jirga that the whole country was united in achieving peace through non-violent means and Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif should focus on the peace process instead of embarking on foreign tours.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 2^nd, 2014.

Correction: In an earlier version of this story it stated the JI chief addressed 1,000 tribal elders from Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa in Nishtar Park. The elders were from Fata and the event was in Nishtar Hall. The errors are regretted.