Maulana Fazalur Rehman, chief of Jamiat Ulema Islam (JUI), addresses a gathering during a peace conference organised by Islamic parties in Multan yesterday. The government opened negotiations with the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) last month in a bid to end a bloody insurgency which has cost thousands of lives. The process broke down for more than two weeks after militants killed 23 kidnapped soldiers, but later resumed after the Taliban announced a month-long ceasefire.

Internews/Islamabad

The Pakistan government led by Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s Pakistan Muslim League-N has decided to seek an extension in the one-month-long ceasefire from the Tehrik Taliban Pakistan (TTP) so that talks with the group can go on smoothly.

Sources said here yesterday that a government committee that met on Wednesday agreed that the ceasefire needed to be extended for a minimum of three months and, if possible, for an indefinite period.

Mohamed Ibrahim of the Taliban committee, when contacted, expressed his optimism that the Taliban would extend the one-month temporary ceasefire announced on March 1.

The TTP’s temporary deadline is ending in March but so far the government has not met the demands made by the group while announcing the ceasefire.

According to the sources, the recently-constituted government committee that met under the chairmanship of Interior Minister Nisar Ali on Wednesday showed its eagerness to have a face-to-face meeting with the TTP as soon as possible. It was felt that the first meeting between the two sides would be crucial, both for confidence building and to understand each other’s demands and expectations.

The government committee believes that since the one-month ceasefire is ending in 10-12 days, it was important to get the deadline extended.

The TTP had demanded the release of non-combatant women and children from the custody of the military and security authorities besides seeking an end to what they believe is the extra-judicial killing of Taliban detainees.

The military authorities, however, denied that they had any non-combatant children or women in their custody. They also refuted the allegation of extra-judicial killing of the Taliban detainees.

Following these denials from the military and security authorities, the TTP provided to the government a list of 300 women and children who, according to the Taliban, are in the custody of the military and security authorities. The government is now reportedly taking up the matter with the military and security authorities.

Because of the complexities involved in the issues attached with the peace process, the government believes that the contentious issues require time to get settled. Like the issue of missing persons, in this case also the government is totally dependent on the military and the co-operation of security authorities.

To get things rolling in a positive direction, both the government and the Taliban committees are presently trying to agree on the venue for the dialogue. The government would not mind if such a venue is selected where the Taliban representatives could easily join the process without any fear of being arrested or attacked.

Ibrahim said he was hopeful that the TTP will extend the ceasefire. The Taliban committee, which has met the TTP leaders twice in recent weeks, is sure about the sincerity of the Taliban to get the issue resolved through a peaceful dialogue.

According to Ibrahim, the first and foremost concern is to get the venue finalised. He said a few options were under consideration and hopefully it would be finalised within a few days.

The Jamaat-e-Islami leader and former senator said that the TTP had honoured the ceasefire and would do the same in the future.