The Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan welcomed on Thursday Special Assistant to Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Chief Minister on Information Barrister Muhammad Ali Saif’s appeal for a ceasefire and for a ‘Shariah-compliant’ solution for the banned militant groups and its fighters.

“TTP believes in the negotiation and ceasefire agreement and desires long-lasting peace in Pakistan,” the TTP said in a statement on Thursday.

The statement comes a day after Barrister Saif said that Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government had nothing to do with the negotiations with the TTP.

Addressing a news conference in Swat Wednesday, Saif said that talks were held with TTP within the jurisdiction of the Constitution. However, he said that both parties were yet to reach any decision.

In his press conference, he also extended an olive branch to the TTP in terms of its militants that are believed to be in Afghanistan. He said that a solution had to be found ‘for those 10,000 to 15,000 of our people…’

He also exhorted the TTP not to use violence while invoking the Pashtun code as well as a man’s responsibility as a Muslim.

Saif’s press conference followed on the heels of an extortion letter sent to a provincial minister. In the letter, apparently from the TTP, the minister is told to pay Rs8 million.

While there have been reports of affluent families and industrialists receiving such extortion letters, the TTP is yet to comment on the issue. In earlier statements, the militant group has even said that it wasn’t behind the extortion demands. Locals who spoke to Aaj Digital belive otherwise.

In its latest statement, the TTP said it believed in the negotiation process. However, it said that TTP’s action was in self defence in wake of the government’s ceasefire violation.

Security checkposts and convoys continue to be targeted in KP, particularly in districts bordering Afghanistan and those part of the erstwhile tribal areas.

It said that the TTP ‘mujahideen’ were not present in Afghanistan but residing in Pakistan from the very beginning.

“If the government will show seriousness and will not force our mujahideen to defend themselves, then we will restrain our mujahideen from conducting operations,” said the statement, adding that TTP will move its militants to safe hideouts.

The Pakistan government acknowledged earlier this year that it has been engaged in talks with the proscribed group under the auspices of the Afghan Taliban. Several delegations, including one of religious scholars led by Mufti Taqi Usmani, visited Kabul to soften the TTP over its demands but didn’t achieve any success.

The TTP has demanded the reversal of the 2018 merger of the tribal districts, previously known as the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) with the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province. The TTP is yet to convey any willingness to accede to the government’s demand of the dissolution of the TTP.

Those following the ‘peace talks’ between the government and the TTP, which have been going on for at least six months, say that it resulted in the softening of the stance of the government against militants ‘to bring them in the national sphere’.