Talks with TTP

EDITORIAL: The resumption of peace talks with Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) in Kabul is not something that is happening for the first time; it has happened in the past as well but never came to fruition because the TTP never surrendered to the sovereignty of Pakistan. Agreed, this time there is the TTP’s promise for an indefinite ceasefire and it seems to be holding. But is it that the TTP commanders want in all or is it something cherished by the Afghan Taliban government? To it there is a wider canvas.

Finding itself isolated internationally and with no one reaching Kabul to talk and help it overcome its myriad challenges, the Afghan government is now desperate to break that ice of isolation. It seems to have concluded that its governance invites nothing but renunciation by the world at large.

But it had not met this kind of world boycott in 1996. Pakistan was then the first to accord the Taliban government welcome its ambassador. Islamabad also doled out necessary wherewithal to Kabul to kick-start its governance. But that is no more the case now; Pakistan wants the Taliban leadership to win over international legitimacy by changing its mindset on status of women and its patronage and hospitality of the TTP militants.

So there is this pressure of Kabul on TTP leadership for an indefinite ceasefire with Pakistan and the ongoing talks under the watch of Islamic Afghan Emirate’s (IAE’s) acting prime minister, Mullah Muhammad Akhund. The IAE acting interior minister, Sirajuddin Haqqani, is said to be the central mediator who helped put the talks back on track. But will these talks lead to any tangible breakthrough? The answer, however, remains unanswered essentially because Pakistan would not bite the bait of extension of ceasefire in return of meeting a host of TTP demands that are unacceptable to it from the very word go.

In fact, Pakistan has only one demand: the Afghan government should refuse hospitality to the TTP militants, ask them to return to Pakistan and pledge to give up terrorism. But for their safe havens in the bordering regions, the TTP militants have no capacity and capability to carry out terrorist forays into tribal region of Pakistan. Should they be on the ground in there the Pakistan forces would wipe them out in a matter of days.

And should TTP fighters lay down arms and decide to join the mainstream they would find Pakistan a willing party at the Kabul parleys. A 50-member tribal Jirga is on its way to Kabul to join the parleys and try inducing the TTP leaders to lay down their arms, return home and live peaceful lives in Pakistan.

But that is a distant dream, given the kind of concessions they seek to extract from Pakistan. Prominent among their demands are withdrawal of troops from the former FATA, reversal of its merger with province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, enforcement of their version of Shariah in Malakand and release of their leaders detained by law enforcement agencies of Pakistan. To the extent of releasing some TTP leaders that has already been done, but the rest of TTP demands are simply unacceptable and inapplicable.

The merger of FATA with KP is a constitutional arrangement and therefore impossible to be met by the government. As for withdrawal of forces from the tribal areas that too is not possible until the TTP gives up on its terrorism agenda and returns to peaceful life in Pakistan instead of being allowed to return along with arms.

And as for their demand for enforcement of their version of Shariah in Malakand a similar experiment was tried in 2009 but failed as under that arrangement terrorists returned and had to be snuffed out by a military action. On the face of it, the agenda for rapprochement on the table in Kabul has its inbuilt rejection by Pakistan. The TTP terrorists have shed immeasurable and unforgivable blood of innocent Pakistanis. They should be fought on the ground and defeated, and this should be conveyed in unvarnished words to the government in Kabul.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2022