Pakistani PM says he wants to revive Afghan-Taliban talks

Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has invited All Parties Hurriyat Conference chairperson Syed Ali Shah Geelani to that country, the Hurriyat said here on Saturday after a letter was handed over by the Pakistan High Commissioner Abdul Basit to him.

The lack of interaction during the passage of Indian and Pakistani delegations through New York recently underlines a significant resetting of the trouble-prone relationship with the Modi government burying the stuttering composite dialogue process and focusing firmly and unremittingly on terrorism.

The second round of the talks, which was scheduled to be held in Pakistan on July 31, was postponed in view of reports regarding the death of Mullah Omar and the ensuing leadership crisis among Taliban.

The race for the NA-122 parliamentary seat in Punjab, Pakistan’s richest province and Sharif’s power base, pitted his Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PMLN) party against the opposition Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI).

Islamabad organised the first set of direct peace talks between the Taliban and the Afghan government in July, but another round was abandoned after the announcement of the cleric’s death. However, after more than 14 years, the region is still grappling with rampant militancy.

Security and the economy have improved under Sharif, although analysts say external factors have contributed.

“We worked hard to bring the Taliban to the negotiating table”, Sharif added. Addressing the media here, the prime minister hoped power shortage of Karachi and the rest of Pakistan would be eliminated by 2018.

Since then the Taliban briefly overran the northern Afghan city of Kunduz in an embarrassing blow to President Ashraf Ghani’s government.

Senior officials in Kabul blame elements inside the Pakistani spy agency Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) for supporting the Taliban militants, while Islamabad blames the Afghan government for giving shelter to militants on its side of the border.

North Waziristan, one of Pakistan’s seven semi-autonomous tribal regions, has been a battleground between security forces and the Taliban since the army launched a full-scale campaign in the region in October of a year ago.