Interior Minister Rana Sanaullah said on Wednesday that the dialogue process with the proscribed Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) would be held within constitutional ambit carried forward with the “ownership of the parliament.”
“Talks are underway with the TTP and are facilitated by the Afghan authorities, in which a government-led committee comprising civil and military representatives are negotiating within the framework of the Constitution of Pakistan,” the interior minister said while briefing media in Islamabad along with Minister for Information and Broadcasting Marriyum Aurangzeb regarding the meeting of the National Security Committee (NSC).
However, any final decision will be made within the contours of the Constitution of Pakistan with the approval of the Parliament, he added.
Earlier, a meeting of the National Security Committee was held with Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif in the chair, in which talks with the TTP and situation along the Pak-Afghan border were discussed in detail.
The meeting was briefed about the overall security situation in the country including the internal and external security threats faced by it and steps taken by relevant security institutions to deal with them.
National, parliamentary and political leadership, members of parliament and military leadership attended the meeting.
The meeting was also briefed on administrative matters of the Pakistan-Afghanistan border maintaining that Pakistan has always played a very responsible and positive role for peace and stability in Afghanistan and will continue to do so.
The interior minister said that the political leadership expressed satisfaction over the strategy and progress made in this regard so far.
Sanaullah reiterated that negotiations with the TTP will be held within the constitutional ambit, stressing that peace will be ensured at all costs.
Regarding former prime minister Imran Khan’s diatribes about reforms in the National Accountability law, Rana Sanaullah said NAB law has been amended as per spirit of the Criminal Procedure Code, reducing the remand period from 90 to 14 days.
Every citizen, including front men of Imran Khan, would benefit from these amendments, the interior minister said and added that Imran Khan was trying to mislead the nation regarding reforms in NAB law to build a new narrative.
He said that 85% of the amendments in the law were made by Imran Khan’s government.
“In your government, the previous laws were still intact. What did you do? Against whom were you able to prove a case in the last 3.5 years?” the interior minister questioned while rejecting Imran Khan’s claims that nobody can be arrested after the amendments made to NAB law.
The interior minister accused the PTI chairman of misusing the institutions to make false cases against his political opponents.
He, however, said that NAB and other institutions will no longer be used to undermine political opponents.
