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Pakistan Says No To Military Action Against Taliban
Pakistani army soldiers stop over during their patrol in in Wana, November 27, 2012. PHOTO BY REUTERS/Faisal Mahmood
By Maria Golovnina
17/12/2013
ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - Pakistan ruled out military action against the Taliban on Tuesday and promised to persuade insurgents to lay down their weapons through peace negotiations.
Mullah Fazlullah, the Pakistani Taliban's new hardline leader, has rejected outright the idea of peace talks and vowed to step up attacks as part of his campaign to topple the central government and establish Islamist rule in Pakistan.
The emergence of Fazlullah has prompted speculation that Pakistan might have to ditch hopes for a negotiated ceasefire and resort to military action against militants holed up in lawless ethnic Pashtun areas on the Afghan border.
But on Tuesday, the government said the Taliban's tough rhetoric did not mean negotiations had failed.
"Their public posturing is different from what's going on in the background," said Tariq Azeem, a senior official in Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif's team. "They want to appear tough but back channels show that they are also interested in talks."
The Taliban could not be immediately reached for comment.
Under Fazlullah, Taliban fighters took over Pakistan's Swat valley in 2009, imposing austere Islamic rule and eventually prompting the army to launch a major offensive to flush them out of the strategic region just 160 km (100 miles) northwest of Islamabad.
Sharif chaired a meeting of the Cabinet Committee on National Security on Tuesday where officials confirmed their commitment to talks rather than military action.
"The Committee deliberated upon the government's strategy to engage various groups of Pakistani Taliban to address issues of extremism and militancy," Sharif's office said in a statement.
"The Committee reaffirmed (the) government's commitment to the strategy of negotiations with TTP (Pakistani Taliban) and consider the use of other options only as a last resort."
Fazlullah, who fled to Afghanistan after the 2009 operation, has now returned to his homeland to lead the insurgency. He was named the leader last month after his predecessor, Hakimullah Mehsud, was killed in a U.S. drone strike on November 1.
Nicknamed "Mullah Radio" for his fiery broadcasts in Swat, Fazlullah is best known for ordering the assassination of teenage female education activist Malala Yousafzai. She survived the attack and now lives in Britain.
Fazlullah has now promised a new campaign of shootings and bombings against the government, particularly in densely populated Punjab province - Sharif's political powerbase.
But, a month after he took over as the Taliban chief, there have been no major attacks in Pakistan.
The Pakistani Taliban are allied with the Afghan Taliban but Afghan Taliban militants are intent on expelling foreign forces from Afghanistan and do not fight the Pakistani government.
(Editing by Robert Birsel)
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