One of the three reasons peace talks with the outlawed terrorist organisation Tehreek-i-Taliban failed in the past was the latter’s unwillingness to face law for the crimes, including the attack on the Army Public School (APS) in Peshawar, it committed, Pakistan’s Special Representative on Afghanistan Asif Durrani said.

The other two reasons were that the banned group was neither ready to surrender, nor swore allegiance to the Constitution of Pakistan, he said while speaking at a programme hosted by an Islamabad-based think tank on the Afghan peace process.

Consultation on ‘Afghan peace and reconciliation: Pakistan’s interests and policy options’ was another event in a series of discussions organised by the Pak Institute for Peace Studies.

In talks with the interim Afghan government, Durrani said that Pakistan had told them that they needed to make the banned outfit surrender, disarm the group, and detain its leadership.

The banned group had 5,000 to 6,000 militants in its cadres taking shelter in Afghanistan, he claimed and added that Pakistan has “evidence that the TTP is getting money from India through Afghan proxies.”

Afghanistan should be given an opportunity to make its own decisions, PTI-backed MNA Ali Muhammad Khan said at the event. He added that the country could help its neighbour in peace-building.

Former chief minister of Balochistan Abdul Malik Baloch spoke about parliamentary supremacy, saying that the solution of all economic, political and foreign policy problems only lied with Parliament.

‘Flawed policy’

Ex-senator Afrasiab Khattak was of the view that the root cause of many problems of Pakistan, including its ailing economy and extremism, was its flawed policy for Afghanistan.

Another former senator Jehanzeb Jamaldini stated that the formation of comprehensive external and internal policies should be the priority for any government.

The new ruling coalition in the Centre would look into all the matters concerning the Afghan policy, MNA Shaista Jadoon said.

Pakistan’s Afghan policy was under the influence of foreign elements and it even failed to protect the country’s major interests due to the “same reason”, former defence secretary Lt General (retd) Naeem Khalid Lodhi said.

Council of Islamic Ideology Chairman Qibla Ayaz claimed that institutionalism was on the decline within ranks of Afghan Taliban and individualism had taken centre stage among them.

The article was originally published on Business Recorder.