Talks with TTP couldn’t move forward despite Afghan Taliban help: Sheikh Rashid

ISLAMABAD: Interior Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed said on Friday that talks with the banned Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) could not move forward, despite attempts for it.

Briefing the Senate Committee on Home Affairs, he said the federal government had abandoned the idea of dialogue with the TTP due to the conditions put by the banned outfit. Sheikh Rashid said the Afghan Taliban had initially held talks with the TTP and tried to persuade them to settle issues with Pakistan, but the talks could not move ahead as there were things that could not be accepted.

The interior minister said that there were people of the outlawed TTP in the border areas of Afghanistan and many groups may have come together, adding that two of their terrorists had been killed in Islamabad recently. Sheikh Rashid said that the conditions laid out by them were not acceptable to the government, following which they ended the ceasefire themselves, adding that “we have received indications that negotiations will not succeed”. Regarding terrorism in Balochistan, the minister said the communication that was intercepted in yesterday’s incidents, people were not only in touch with Afghanistan and India but also from other places. “Seven people including a major were martyred in the attack,” he added.