ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s National Security Adviser (NSA) Moeed Yusuf on Wednesday rejected reports that the government was granting “amnesty” to members of the banned Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), saying no decision had been made in this regard.
The statement comes a week after the Pakistani government and the outlawed group agreed on a month-long ceasefire.
Talks with the TTP were "ongoing" and the truce would be extended if the negotiations progressed, Pakistan's Information Minister Chaudhry Fawad Hussain said on Monday, maintaining that the dialogue was in accordance with the Constitution of Pakistan.
The TTP, or the Pakistani Taliban, is a separate group from the Afghan Taliban. Thousands of Pakistanis have been killed in violence perpetrated by the group over the last two decades.
The group has accepted responsibility for several high-profile attacks, including an assassination attempt on activist and now Nobel prize winner Malala Yousafzai and an attack on an army-run school in Peshawar in which 134 children and 19 adults were killed in December 2014.
“I don't know from where this talk started [of granting amnesty], that a decision has been made. There is no such decision [of a general amnesty],” Yusuf said on Dawn News show 'Live with Adil Shahzeb'.
“State too has experience; we also know that previous agreements didn’t work,” he said, adding that the government would assess whether the TTP was serious after further talks.
“However, state has decided that if ceasefire and talks [continue] and they [TTP] agree to accept state’s terms, then we can talk [further].”
On Wednesday, the Supreme Court of Pakistan, which has been hearing a case relating to the 2014 Peshawar school massacre, summoned Prime Minister Imran Khan to question if his government had acted against those involved in the attack and those responsible for providing security. PM Khan appeared before the court and promised to take action against negligent officials.
"State is absolutely clear [on this] and sensitive. Those who were martyred were our kids, our soldiers and civilians," Yusuf said.
"Our tribes [people based in Pakistan’s northwestern tribal region] have sentiments for what they lost, so it cannot happen that the state just shuts its eyes.”
