Pakistan ‘seeks to revive talks between Afghan government, Taliban’
Pakistan’s Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif says his administration is attempting to revive the so-called peace talks between the Afghan government and the Taliban militant group.
Sharif made the remarks during a press briefing in the eastern city of Lahore on Saturday.
“We are now trying to resume the (peace) process and pray to God to crown our efforts with success,” Sharif said.
The remarks come as senior Pakistani civilian and military officials have been trying to persuade the Taliban leadership in recent months to resume the peace talks with the US and the Afghan governments.
Premier Sharif’s administration organized the first round of face-to-face talks between Taliban negotiators and those of the Afghan government in Murree, north of the Pakistani capital, Islamabad, in early July. The talks concluded with an agreement to meet again around July 29.
Sharif said, however, that the scheduled second round of the talks was adversely affected by the untimely news of the death of Mullah Omar, the former leader of the Afghan Taliban.
“The news of Mullah Omar should not have been broken just before the start of the second round of talks,” he said.
Taliban later said they had hid the news of his death for two years, as they did not want to make it public until foreign forces would have ended their fight against the militants in Afghanistan.
On August 13, 2015, Afghan Foreign Minister Salahuddin Rabbani met Pakistani Prime Minister’s Advisor on Foreign Affairs Sartaj Aziz in Islamabad to discuss the revival of the suspended talks with the Taliban.
Tensions have been rising between Islamabad and Kabul over the issue of militancy in recent months.
Senior officials in Kabul blame elements inside the Pakistani spy agency Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) for supporting the Taliban militants, while Islamabad blames the Afghan government for giving shelter to militants on its side of the border.
The US invaded Afghanistan in 2001 with the stated objective of curbing militancy and bringing peace and stability to the region. However, after more than 14 years, the region is still grappling with rampant militancy.
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