Tribal jirga opens to discuss Taliban dialogue offer

Tribal elders and political leaders Thursday opened discussions in Islamabad to chalk out policy for holding negotiations with the Taliban.

Taliban had offered peace talks to the government this month. However, there has been no progress so far as the government is asking the Taliban to stop attacks before the talks are to be started and appoint ‘serious’ team for dialogue.

Taliban have rejected calls for a ceasefire and said the issue will be discussed when the talks are started.

The Jamiat ulema-e-Islam (JUI-F) party has organized the tribal jirga or council of elders and senior political and religious leaders are also participating in the conference.

The JUI-F Chief, Maulana Fazal-ur-Rehman, told the inaugural ceremony that the gathering will ‘garner support for peace efforts’ from political leadership of the country.

Fazal also said that the jirga will first talk to political leadership and then to the government, military and the Taliban to end the years of bloodshed in the country.

Taliban had offered dialogue in a video message on February 4 and had sought guarantee of three senior political leaders, including Maulana Fazal-ur-Rehman, organizer of the jirga.

The Taliban spokesman, Ehsanullah Ehsan, who appeared in the video, says the Taliban are willing to hold talks with the government and that Taliban still await the government’s response.

Fazal’s JUI-F party is considered very close to the Afghan Taliban and Fazal recently also visited Qatar and reportedly held talks with the Afghan Taliban negotiators in his efforts to encourage them to enter into talks with the Afghan government.

The Thursday’s jirga is the second major conference on the Taliban dialogue offer this month.

Earlier, the Pashtoon nationalist “Awami National Party” or ANP held a grand conference of political and religious parties which had also called for giving ‘first priority to the negotiations’ with the Taliban.

Maulana Fazal says the grand jirga of tribal elders will share their peace proposals with the top political leaders to get consensus and finalize a mechanism for dialogue with Taliban. He said the moot will issue a declaration at the conclusion of deliberations and speeches by the tribal elders and senior political leaders.

The government is now under pressure to find out a negotiated settlement to the violent extremism which has claimed the lives of nearly 40,000 people since

Pakistan joined the U.S.-led international coalition in 2001. The country also suffered about 70 billion dollars losses during the conflict.

Short URL: https://www.newspakistan.pk/?p=38642

Posted by Tahir Khan on Feb 28 2013. Filed under Latest News, National, Pakistan, Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.