TTP indulged in peace talks with govt: Report

TTP indulged in peace talks with govt: Report

By Saleem Mehsud

PESHAWAR, Nov 21: The banned Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) is holding peace talks with the government focused on South Waziristan Agency (SWA) where military operation against the Taliban fighters loyal to slain chief of the TTP Baitullah Mehsud was stepped up in 2009.

According to private TV channel reports, TTP and government trying to strike peace deal focusing only on SWA and TTP according to reports forwarded many conditions to the government in which the major condition was release of their detained accomplices from the custody of Pakistani jails and secret cells.

TTP, led by Commander Hakimullah Mehsud, is considered to be the major threat to the country at large. The banned organization has claimed several attacks including suicide, remote control blasts, target killing, kidnapping and clashes with the security forces in the entire tribal belt bordering Afghanistan.

“A tribal elder and mediator confirmed the reports about talks between the government and TTP and termed the talks as difficult,” private TV channel reported without mentioning name of the mediator due to sensitivity of the matter.

Similarly, the TTP unnamed commander also confirmed the reports, saying that talks are focused on the South Waziristan region and could be expanded to try to reach a comprehensive deal.

It is pertinent to mention here that TTP was declared as terrorist organisation by the US administration and it was also predicted that US will not be friendly to the developments between the Pakistani government and TTP, organization of Pakistani Taliban.

Last month, Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani said that his administration is ready to start talks with all factions of the Taliban, including the Haqqani network.

For the first time, the prime minister provided details about how the talks would be conducted. “We will not ask them to disarm before the negotiations since this is against the tribal culture. However, the political agents [government administrators in the tribal regions] will ask them to decommission themselves,” he said.

While vigorously rejecting the offer of peace talks on Eid, the TTP Chief Hakimullah Mehsud declared that war with the state of Pakistan would continue, primarily because it is siding with "the forces of the infidel" - a reference to the United States and it allies.

The US State Department's Rewards for Justice Program is offering a prize of up to US$5 million for information leading directly to the apprehension or conviction, in any country, of Mehsud.

The TTP that Mehsud heads is an umbrella organization of small and big Islamic militant groups based in the FATA. It was formed in North Waziristan on December 12, 2007, when an assembly of 40 senior Pakistani jihadi leaders commanding a pooled force of about 40,000 gathered in Peshawar, the provincial capital of Khyber Pakhtunkhawa province, and decided to come together under a single banner led by Baitullah Mehsud, who was killed in a US drone attack in August 2009.

However, instead of launching a full-scale military offensive in North Waziristan to dismantle the vast infrastructure of the TTP, the Pakistani establishment is offering peace talks, not only to the Taliban but to other militant groups. This comes amid concerns expressed by international terrorism experts that such moves are unwise and bound to produce another fiasco, besides further eroding the authority of the Pakistan state.