KARACHI: Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif said on Friday that the government desires to resolve all issues with the Taliban through negotiations.
“The negotiation process with Taliban was about to complete but an unfortunate incident derailed it,” the prime minister said while talking to leading businessmen in Karachi‚ in an apparent reference to the killing of Pakistani Taliban chief Hakimullah Mehsud in a US drone strike in the restive North Waziristan tribal agency last Friday.
“We do not want the blood of our brothers and sisters to be spilled in streets and we will make every possible endeavor to prevent it,” Sharif said.
However, the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) a day earlier refused to hold talks with the Pakistani government as their newly-appointed chief Mullah Fazlullah was not in favor of peace talks, the TTP spokesman Shahidullah Shahid said.
“There will be no more talks as Mullah Fazlullah is already against negotiations with the Pakistan government,” said the spokesman, rejecting the idea of any further peace talks.
