Respect national consensus on Taliban talks: Fazl

Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam Fazl chief Maulana Fazl Rahman has called for respecting the APC’s national consensus on talks with the Taliban, saying undermining the talks option will not help efforts aimed at ending terrorism in the country.

According to his spokesperson Jan Achakzai, Maulana said, “There is already a consensus on the talks with the Taliban agreed by national leadership in the APC and debating merit and demerit of talks have passed”.

He said some quarters were not happy with the decision but they had to respect the military and political leadership’s agreement on holding talks with the militants, if they believed on democratic decision making process.

Fazl also regretted that the second tier leadership of certain political parties was also speaking against the APC’s outcome, despite the fact that their top leaders had signed up to the agreement.

He said holding talks with the Taliban was a very serious issue and should not be sacrificed at the altar of point scoring and petty politics.

The JUI-F chief said Taliban talks in Qatar were a big lesson for us that force alone could not eradicate insurgency. “The US with all its might and money could not subdue the Afghan Taliban,” he observed.

He said the Afghan Taliban talks had opened a window of opportunity for talks with the Pakistani Taliban and the APC endorsed this viewpoint, and now it was the responsibility of all concerned to seize the opportunity.

Fazl warned that attempts to sabotage national consensus on talks with the Taliban would likely prolong the cycle of mayhem, misery and destruction in the country.

Source: Pakistan Today