The prospects for reaching any viable peace deal with the Taleban are growing dim with each passing day. The talks, initially planned for Tuesday, did not take place due to government’s reported confusion about the make-up of its team.
Visibly infuriated Taleban delegates dropped yet another bombshell by ruling out any chances of peace until the imposition of Shariah law in the country and a complete withdrawal of the US forces from neighboring Afghanistan. The two sides are expected to meet today but the manner in which things are being handled, it seems highly unlikely. Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has announced a four-member committee of non-officials for the onerous task but nuts and bolts are yet to be fixed. Sharif held another round of talks with his committee members in a bid to plug the loopholes but things hardly seem to move in the right direction. An impression that the government is still groping in the dark, has therefore, gained ground. The committee coordinator, Irfan Siddiqi, an Islamabad-based journalist, rang up one of the principal members of the Taleban negotiation team, Maulana Samiul Haq, but failed to show up at the appointed time for talks with him. It would be pertinent to mention here that Siddiqi — who had also served as press secretary to a former president — has now been made the special assistant to the premier reportedly because of his pro-Sharif stance in his weekly columns published in a local daily. The Taleban instead of nominating their own members for the parleys, picked Pakistani politicians to represent them. This in the opinion of many experts was a masterstroke, for, if the talks failed to pick up or ended in fiasco, they could easily wash their hands off, and shift the blame on their Pakistani partners. The Tehreek-i-Insaf chief Imran Khan and the Jamiat-e-Ulema-i-Islam (JUI) representative were quick to see through the game and pulled themselves out of the squad. Instead of being deterred, the Taleban instantly agreed to limit the number of their team to three. That placed the Sharif administration in an embarrassing situation that in a bid to put the pieces together had to redraw its strategy but was disappointed by the lack of cohesion among members of the official negotiation team. One of its members, Iftikhar Mohmand, a former Pakistan ambassador to Kabul, blamed the Taleban for finding excuses to wriggle out of commitment for dialogue. Criticizing the government’s negotiators for their failure to meet with representatives of the Taleban committee on Tuesday, Maulana Samiul Haq, leader of his own faction of the JUI alleged that the government was not serious about holding peace talks and feared that a military operation seemed imminent. Talking to the media, he alleged that the government was under pressure to abandon peace talks with the militants. He also appealed to the militants to remain patient and refrain from any inflammatory reactions in response to the government’s handling of the affairs. The blamegame continued for several hours but the government showed
wisdom by keeping its cool. However, one of the key members of the Taleban team, Maulana Mohammad Hussain, thought that the media should avoid creating a hype about an issue that needed calculated handling. The politico-religious scholar thought that highlighting the past and holding the Taleban responsible for bomb blasts, killings and of propagating their own brand of Islam, the critics should watch the situation calmly, in order to instill confidence in the Taleban camp so that they could also feel assured of something positive emerging from these parleys. “There is no point recalling the past,” he said, adding that ” an entirely new approach is needed to handle the critical situation.” Analysts, however, believe that Taleban should not be trusted. They argue that these militants have killed thousands of innocent people and should not be pardoned. Public opinion in the country is also hostile to Taleban but Sharif seems determined in his approach to bring them to the negotiating table. The army, although quiet, nevertheless keeping its fingers crossed and must be getting ready for a surprise action against a group, which they treat as hoodlums and vagabonds. By Salahuddin Haider- Eurasia Review
