Peace talks between Pakistan and Taliban begin

A long-awaited first round of peace talks between Pakistani Taliban insurgents and the government began in Islamabad yesterday after numerous delays and growing doubt over the chance of their success.

The insurgents have been battling since 2007 to topple Pakistan's government and establish strict Islamic rule, but Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif believes both sides are now ready to find a negotiated settlement and stop fighting.

"Talks on," Irfan Siddiqui, a government negotiator picked by Sharif, said in a text message from the meeting. He described the atmosphere as "cordial and friendly".

Several earlier efforts at striking peace deals with the militants failed to end the violence for long, only allowing them to regroup, recruit new fighters and strike back with renewed vengeance.

Pakistan’s neighbours are watching closely, acutely aware that another failure to find a peaceful solution could further destabilise the region already nervous ahead of the expected pull-out of most foreign forces from neighbouring Afghanistan.

Preliminary
Yesterday's meeting in Islamabad was a preliminary round where the two sides were expected to agree on a roadmap for future contacts and discuss conditions and demands.

The militants watched the progress of the talks from their mountainous hideouts on the Afghan border, with their interests represented by three Taliban-friendly public figures handpicked by the insurgents.

“The progress of the talks will be submitted to the prime minister,” said a government official, who declined to be identified, as he is not authorised to comment on the talks. “They are meeting at an undisclosed location.”

The Pakistani Taliban, known as Pakistani Tehreek- e-Taliban, is a deeply fragmented umbrella group consisting of dozens of entities, so striking a deal with one of them would not necessarily stop the violence.

On Tuesday, the first attempt at talking got off to a shambolic start after government negotiators failed to turn up at an agreed time, angering the insurgents’ representatives.

Many in Pakistan doubt that talking to an insurgent group that stages almost daily attacks will succeed.

As the sides prepared for talks this week, a suicide bomber killed eight people near a Shia Muslim mosque in the city of Peshawar. The Taliban has tried to distance itself from the attack but the bombing reinforced doubts about the talks. "The unavoidable question for the government though: what are talks meant to achieve if violence continues even in the immediate run-up to the first real, known attempt at talks?" the respected Dawn daily wrote.

Militants have stepped up attacks against security forces since the beginning of the year, prompting the army to send fighter jets to bomb their strongholds in the ethnic Pashtun region of North Waziristan, along the Afghan border, and triggering talk that a major ground offensive was in the works. – (Reuters)