WASHINGTON: Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto Zardari has said that the Pakistani leadership — both political and military — have ruled out talks with Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP).
“I am confident that if we can work with the Afghan interim government, which has influence over these groups, we will be successful in maintaining our security,” he said in a wide-ranging interview with The Washington Post in Davos, Switzerland, where he is attending the World Economic Forum.
The foreign minister accused PTI chief Imran Khan of giving TTP a place to hide. He said that Khan not only released the TTP prisoners in Pakistan’s custody but also engaged in dialogue with them.
“He [Khan] has always been ideologically sympathetic to their point of view,” the foreign minister added.
In response to a question about whether Pakistan had hoped that the new Afghan government would act against the TTP, FM Bilawal said: “Our hope — and in fact, their agreement — was that their soil would not be used for terrorism. We do hope to cooperate with them to deal with terrorists that are a concern to us.”
Echoing the sentiments of his recent condemnation of the attack on Kabul’s foreign ministry, he reiterated that both Pakistan and Afghanistan were victims of terrorism. The FM stressed that the two governments would have to work together to counter terrorism.
