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Pakistan's Interior Minister Rana Sanaullah on Wednesday said that the talks with Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) will be held only under the framework of the Constitution.
Addressing a press conference today, the Minister informed that the decision has been taken during the meeting on national security in Islamabad. He also said that it was also decided that an in-camera briefing will be held on the matter and later Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif will brief the parliament. "The talks (with the TTP) will be taken forward under the guidance of parliament," Sanaullah said as quoted by Dawn newspaper. TTP had on June 2 announced an "indefinite ceasefire" in view of the "substantial progress" made in talks with the Pakistani government during a round of meetings in Kabul. The announcement had come a day after a 50-member Pakistani tribal jirga -- including a federal minister, representatives from the KP government and tribal elders -- joined the peace talks. Islamabad has increasingly complained of attacks across the border from Afghanistan since the Taliban took control of Kabul in August, an issue that has become a source of diplomatic tension. In March, Afghan officials said a Pakistani airstrike in eastern Afghanistan killed 47 people. Pakistan did not comment on the strike but urged Kabul to secure its border to prevent militant operations. The Afghan Taliban called the assault a "cruelty" that "is paving the way for enmity between Afghanistan and Pakistan". In March, the terrorist organisation Islamic State suicide bomber, who authorities say was an Afghan national, killed 64 people at a mosque in Peshawar. According to a statement issued after the meeting today, the institutions "responsible for national security" briefed the committee on the overall security situation of the country. The meeting was apprised of internal and external threats and the measures being taken by the agencies to handle the security situation. (ANI)
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