The tentative truce: Ceasefire between govt, TTP leaves many unanswered questions

LAHORE: Amid criticism from the opposition and concerns by the country’s top court, the PTI-led federal government and the banned Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) confirmed a one-month ceasefire recently.
Federal Minister for Information Fawad Chaudhry on November 8 announced that the Taliban government in Afghanistan facilitated the talks between the two sides.

“The government of Pakistan and the TTP have agreed upon a complete ceasefire,” the federal minister said in a press release. According to him, the focus of the talks was state sovereignty, national security, peace and social and economic stability in the tribal areas.

A day later, on November 9, the federal cabinet announced that the government would give a chance to those factions of the TTP which were not involved in terrorism directly and were ready to acknowledge and respect the country’s Constitution and the law.

However, it was made clear that hardcore TTP terrorists, who were involved in the killings of innocent people and still want to continue their nefarious activities, would be dealt with an iron hand.

In his statement, a TTP spokesperson Mohammad Khurasani said the ceasefire – which began on November 9 – would remain in place till December 9. He said during this period, the TTP and Pakistani government would form a committee to continue talks and that both the parties would adhere to the ceasefire.

According to sources, the peace talks between the government and the TTP began in October, and the truce could be extended if the talks moved forward. The state’s decision to hold talks with the banned outfit, however, received backlash from the opposition and the judiciary.

On November 8, PPP Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari raised concerns about the negotiations between the government and the TTP and declared that “without the parliament’s approval, any agreement with the banned militant outfit will have no legitimacy.”

Neither the government could start talks nor reach an agreement with the TTP unilaterally without taking the parliament’s nod, said Bilawal.

“Let me be very clear, any policy without the consent of the parliament will have no legitimacy,” said the PPP chairman, adding that he would continue criticizing the government for holding talks with the banned outfit as no one was taken on board by the government on this matter.

“Who are they to decide on begging the TTP for talks and unilaterally engaging the banned outfit which martyred our soldiers, national leadership and the children of the Army Public School (APS)? A policy in this regard approved by the house will be a better policy that would be legitimate too,” he maintained.

Summoning the premier on November 10, a three-member Supreme Court bench also grilled Prime Minister Imran Khan over his government’s inaction against the terrorists responsible for the APS carnage in 2014, seeking details of the negotiations with the TTP.

During the hearing, the SC judges – including Chief Justice of Pakistan (CJP) Gulzar Ahmed, Justice Qazi Mohammad Amin Ahmed and Justice Ijazul Ahsan – kept on firing questions at the PM. Justice Amin reminded the premier that Pakistan was not a “small” country.

“We are the sixth-largest army in the world,” he said. “Are we bringing them [TTP] back to the negotiating table instead of taking action against them?”

Justice Amin also asked PM Imran if the government was going to surrender once again.

CJP Gulzar, in his remarks, asked the premier if he had brought the people guilty of killing Pakistanis to the negotiations table. Justice Ahsan, while addressing the PM, said that the talks should conclude as per the parents who lost their children in the APS attack.

During the hearing, PM Imran asked for a chance to speak given that he had been summoned by the top court, and assured it that his government was ready to implement any orders of the court in the APS attack case.

“I and my government believe in the rule of law, and there are no holy cows in the country, and no one is above the law,” said the premier. During the hearing, the SC bench also asked the federal government to listen to the stance of the victims’ parents and then take action against anyone whose negligence was proved.

To make sense of the entire situation, Bol News talked to leading political, defence and policy analysts to inquire what would be the impact of such talks on the region and Pakistan.

Lahore-based analyst Ahsan Raza thought that it was the domain of the government to decide about holding talks with anyone, and the judiciary could not hold it accountable for that.

“Governments have the right to hold, negotiate with or take action against terrorist organizations. This is the right of the executives, not courts,” Raza said while adding that the PTI government has followed in the footsteps of its predecessors, the PML-N and the PPP, to hold negotiations with the banned TTP.

The analyst recalled that in 2014, Nawaz held negotiations with the group, but things could not go in the right way due to the strict terms of the TTP and, later on, the APS carnage. Earlier, the PPP government had struck a deal with the terrorists in Swat.

Agreeing with Raza, Dr Hassan Shehzad, an Islamabad-based analyst, told Bol News that dialogue between the government and the TTP was not a new thing.

He said that every time a government had struck peace deals with the terrorist organization in the past, the latter was encouraged into scuttling it on one count or the other. However, the nature of those deals had always been international.

“This time, the Afghan Taliban are facilitating the dialogue. The army leadership has also briefed parliamentarians over it during a meeting of the National Assembly Committee on National Security.”

The chit-chat between JUI-F’s Abdul Ghafoor Haideri and Army Chief General Qamar Javed Bajwa was also meaningful, Dr Shehzad claimed.

“Responding to a quip about his alleged friendship with Prime Minister Imran Khan, General Qamar had said that [PM] Imran Khan was his boss.”

According to Dr Shehzad, the army chief through his statement wanted to remind people that “who is who and what is what in case the deal with the TTP meets the same fate as it did in the past.”

When asked about the impact of the government-TTP talks on the international front, Dr Shehzad said that it was stating the obvious that the US and China changed goalposts in Afghanistan.

“But another development that many usually miss is increasing cooperation between Azerbaijan and Israel. Azerbaijan is also in alliance with Pakistan and Turkey on many fronts. Iran has warned explicitly that it is against the influence of Israel in its neighbouring countries like Azerbaijan.”

He said that it may be a coincidence that the warming of ties between Azerbaijan and Israel and among Azerbaijan, Pakistan, and Turkey was taking place when a deal with the TTP was being struck.

“It also may be a coincidence that threats to Iran are rising along its borders with Azerbaijan and Afghanistan. But it is not a coincidence that Pakistan is gaining influence both in Afghanistan and Azerbaijan more than before.”

If the government manages to strike a deal with the TTP, the influence of Pakistan was bound to rise in Kabul, which will not make the EU and the US as happy as China, Dr Shehzad added.

“Therefore, it will weaken Pakistan’s position in the West. India has already been poised to fill this gap. In the long run, it can land Pakistan into international isolation with only China and its allies on its side.”

Partially agreeing with Dr Shehzad, acclaimed analyst and columnist Yasmeen Aftab Ali said that the potpourri of the ruling elite abdicated its writ to check their coming out in the streets.

“Pakistan has been repeatedly accused of harbouring, nay, exporting terrorism. What message does this ‘strategy’ send internationally?” she asked.

The analyst said that the International Monetary Fund (IMF) had already refused to give Pakistan the next tranche of loan.

“It will do well to remember that the managing directors of the IMF and the World Bank meet regularly to consult on major issues. Both their staffs also collaborate on policy matters and country assistance,” she added.

Ali continued that the US, the UK and France were also prominent members of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) – an intergovernmental organization against money laundering and terror financing – that refused to remove Pakistan from its grey list despite the country’s various policy measures.

“Will the FATF finally graduate us into the black-listed league? Probably. Can this also lead to sanctions on Pakistan? Maybe,” Ali asked and added that China would be interested in investing in Afghanistan to strengthen regional influence.

“China will not want the Taliban’s interference in the Xinjiang region – a Muslim majority area that shares some border with Afghanistan. How will it react to the Taliban partnering with the Pakistani government? It may not react immediately. However, this can be a double-edged sword.”

“How, above all, will China react if the security of its personnel is threatened? Earlier in 2021, the all-weather ally of Pakistan demanded $38 million compensation for the dead engineers at the Dasu Dam Project.”

Policy analyst Aisha Saeed said that the peace negotiations between the TTP and Pakistan were being mediated by Afghan Interior Minister Sirajuddin Haqqani.

“The TTP has even announced a month-long unilateral ceasefire as a confidence-building measure (CBM) and has tabled a request to free an unknown number of foot soldiers from Pakistani authorities.”

Saeed recalled that Noor Wali Mehsud was appointed TTP’s head in 2018, but he could not muster strength until he was joined by the Sajna group, Jamaatul Ahrar, Hizbul Ahrar, Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, and the al-Qaeda in the Indian sub-continent (AQIS).

The TTP gradually shifted its expansive emphasis from the al-Qaeda-aligned global group rhetoric to a Pakistan-focused and Pashtun-centric narrative.

“A scrutiny of the TTP’s statements divulges persistent orientation to two foremost themes: Islamic principles and tribal customs and the Pashtun tribal nation,” said Saeed.

“A gradual shift in strategy and rhetoric indicates that the TTP desires to continue using sanctuaries in Afghanistan without being tagged as a global terrorist. It wants to position itself as a legal insurgent group, and muster mass support from Pashtuns in border regions of Afghanistan.”

Policy analyst Saeed said that a peace deal was being examined with a myopic view of past experiences, and without an existing threat spectrum for the TTP.

“The Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (IEA) appears to be making good strides in the international arena as legitimate rulers and forming an inclusive government to run the country.”

“Meanwhile, Islamic State Khorasan Province (ISKP) appears to be a threat and is being dealt with to bring normalcy to the country. The TTP appears to be thorny as the IEA has pledged to its neighbours that its soil will not be used for attacks in their countries,” she added.

Saeed said that the peace deal would not stop security agencies of Pakistan from conducting intelligence-based operations (IBOs) against sleeper cells within its frontiers and curb support.

“The government needs to act fast and resolve existing societal cleavages in erstwhile tribal areas to muster favourable support and negate the TTP’s agenda.”

“The peace deal appears a favourable proposition in existing times but will require guarantee and subsequent strong kinetic action from the IEA if the TTP appears to undertake violent measures against the deal,” she added.