ISLAMABAD: The Foreign Office rejected the Afghan Taliban’s most recent attempt to arbitrate a dispute between Pakistan and Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan on Thursday, calling it a belittling of those who have been harmed by TTP’s terrorist actions.
“Pakistan has no intention of holding discussions with the TTP. During a weekly media briefing, FO spokesperson Mumtaz Zahra Baloch stated, “We believe that such offers are an affront to thousands of victims of TTP, who have been killed in Pakistan.”
She was answering a question on the offer made by Zabihullah Mujahid, the Taliban spokesman, who had stated that the Taliban government may help with talks with the TTP in a recent media interview. Mujahid further minimized the TTP problem by calling it a Pakistani “internal matter.”
The TTP has severely strained ties between Islamabad and the Taliban regime. The TTP maintains safe havens in Afghanistan from which it plans and carries out terrorist attacks in Pakistan.
Ms. Baloch reiterated Islamabad’s stance on the TTP and urged the Afghan government to take decisive action against the terror organization and other groups that pose a threat to Pakistan’s security and have killed Pakistani citizens within its borders.
She added that multiple independent reports have confirmed the existence of terror groups, including the TTP, in Afghanistan, in addition to the bilaterally shared “concrete evidence” of the involvement of individuals and groups based in Afghanistan in terrorist incidents within Pakistan.
