ISLAMABAD: The outlawed Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), which has nominated a three-member team for negotiations with the government committee, has set its long-demanded enforcement of Shariah in the country as a condition for peace talks.
“Without Shariah law, the Taliban won’t accept (the talks) even one per cent,” Maulana Abdul Aziz, a member of the Taliban-nominated peace committee and Lal Masjid chief cleric told a foreign news agency on Wednesday. “If some factions accept it, then the others won’t accept it.”
“Their real agenda is Shariah,” Aziz said, suggesting that all country’s secular courts based on the common law system be abolished.
“I don’t think the government will accept this but they should, because war isn’t the way forward,” he added.
The Taliban committee said that there can be no peace in Pakistan unless US-led forces leave Afghanistan and Shariah is enforced in the country.
Maulana Samiul Haq, Jamiat Uleme e Islam – Sami (JUI-S) leader and another member of the Taliban committee, said that there could be no peace in the region while there were still US troops across the border.
Meanwhile, the prime minister’s advisor on national affairs and the coordinator of the government-nominated peace committee Irfan Siddiqui said the meeting with the committee nominated by the Taliban for talks is expected to take place on Thursday.
“We will listen to reservations of the Taliban’s committee pertaining to our powers and will also redress them,” Siddiqui said, adding that they will also apprise them of the reservations of the government’s committee.
Siddiqui said that they are ready to meet Taliban’s representatives wherever they want.
