TTP Flag
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
November 8, 2021
Pakistan has reached a “complete cease-fire” with the banned Tehrik-e Taliban Pakistan (TTP), a government minister has said.
State television on November 8 quoted Information Minister Fawad Chaudhry as saying negotiations with TTP, also known as the Pakistani Taliban, were ongoing and the cease-fire would be extended, depending on the progress of talks.
“The talks will focus on state sovereignty, national security, peace, social and economic stability in the areas concerned,” he said.
Chaudhry added that Afghanistan’s new Taliban rulers played a role in facilitating the talks.
The announcement comes a little over a month after Prime Minister Imran Khan said the government was holding talks with factions of the Pakistani Taliban to end nearly two decades of conflict.
“There are different groups which form the TTP and some of them want to talk to our government for peace. So, we are in talks with them. It’s a reconciliation process,” Khan told Turkish television channel TRT World on October 1.
The TTP is a separate militant group from the Afghan Taliban, which toppled the Western-backed government in Kabul in mid-August.
However, Pakistan’s militant groups are often interlinked with those across the border in Afghanistan and both follow the same hard-line Sunni Islam.
With reporting by Dawn and PTV News
Copyright (c) 2021. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave NW, Ste 400, Washington DC 20036.
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