The Pakistan Government would be “open to giving” a pardon to members of the banned Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) if they promise not to indulge in terrorist activities and submit to the country’s Constitution, Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi has said.
Qureshi made the remarks during an interview with Britain’s online newspaper ‘The Independent’ and the video of the interview was posted on social media by the state-run Associated Press of Pakistan on Wednesday, Dawn reported.
Voicing concern about the reports of TTP figures being released from prisons in the wake of the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan, Qureshi said, “If those guys come and start creating problems for us over here, it will affect innocent lives and we don’t want that.”
Pakistan is fighting a major domestic insurgency in the form of local Taliban offshoot the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan, or the TTP, as well as al-Qaeda and the ISIS.
Qureshi said if the new Afghan setup could use its influence and talk to the TTP, and “if [the TTP] are willing to mend fences and not take the law into their hands and not get involved in terrorist activities and they submit and surrender to the writ of the Government and the Constitution of Pakistan, we are even open to giving them a pardon.”
“But as long as they do not come and start undertaking terrorist activities [in Pakistan]. That is our concern,” the minister emphasised. Qureshi termed as “positive” the Afghan Taliban administration’s announcement that they would not allow any terrorist groups to use their soil against any country, including Pakistan.
He said Pakistan had been “continuously” pointing out TTP sanctuaries to the previous Ashraf Ghani-led Government, “but they wouldn’t move”. It remains to be seen whether the Afghan Taliban act on their assurances, Qureshi added.
His comments come days after President Arif Alvi suggested during an interview with Dawn News that the Government could consider giving an amnesty to those TTP members who had not remained involved in “criminal activities” and who laid down their weapons and agreed to adhere to the Pakistani Constitution. For years, the TTP unleashed deadly attacks on urban centres across Pakistan from their bases along the Afghan border.
