Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan leader Hakimullah Mehsud operates a machinegun beside fellow fighters in South Waziristan. (file photo)
Pakistani militants say they are ready to begin peace talks with the government if it is willing to take serious steps in this respect.
The government of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif started a movement to establish peace in northwestern Pakistan through negotiations with the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and other militant groups, who have been fighting against the government since 2007.
“We believe in serious talks and we are ready to sit down for them, but the government has not taken any serious steps,” TTP leader Hakimullah Mehsud said on Wednesday, speaking from an undisclosed location in the northwestern tribal region.
“The government has not formally made any contact,” he lamented.
“There is a set procedure for talks, that if one is ready for talks with the other side then they sit with each other and discuss the matters,” said Mehsud, who has a $ 5-million bounty on his head.
He reiterated the demand that any ceasefire between the Pakistani security forces and the militants must include an end to US assassination drone strikes on the country™s tribal areas.
“The government of Pakistan bombs innocent tribal people due to the pressure of America… Drone strikes conducted by Americans were [backed] by Pakistan. Then the Americans pressed Pakistan to start ground operations in these areas, and Pakistan complied. So the government is responsible for past failures,” Mehsud stated.
He also denied carrying out recent deadly attacks in public places, but said his group would continue to target “the United States and its friends.”
“As for explosions which cause damage to the life and property of Muslims, we have denied any link in the past, we deny any link today,” Mehsud said.
“We have targeted those who are with the infidels, America, and we will continue to target them,” he added.
On October 2, TTP spokesman Shahidullah Shahid said any peace talks must include an end to US drone attacks in the tribal areas bordering Afghanistan.
“A ceasefire alone is not sufficient. The stoppage of drone strikes is essential, otherwise — if drones continue to strike — we will not accept the ceasefire,” Shahid said.
Washington says the CIA-run drone strikes primarily kill Taliban militants who threaten the US-led international forces in neighboring Afghanistan, although casualty figures show that Pakistani civilians are often the victims of the non-UN-sanctioned attacks.
According to the London-based Bureau of Investigative Journalism, the United States™ drone strikes in Pakistan have killed up to 3,596 people since 2004.
The slaughter of Pakistani civilians, including women and children, in US drone strikes has strained relations between Islamabad and Washington, and Pakistani officials have complained to the US administration on numerous occasions.
In September 2012, a report by the Stanford Law School and the New York University School of Law gave an alarming account of the effect that assassination drone strikes have on ordinary people in Pakistan™s tribal areas.
œThe number of ˜high-level™ targets killed as a percentage of total casualties is extremely low — estimated at just 2%,” the report noted.
GJH/MHB
Copyright: Press TV