‘There Will be Some Talking, Some Fighting’

By Waqar Gillani –

Shafqat Mehmood, senior leader of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf

What is PTI policy on terrorism?

PTI believes we must disengage from America’s War on Terror and also stop drone attacks. Because of these two factors hardcore extremists’ Jihadi narrative has been strengthened. So, we must disengage from the narrative, which has great resonance everywhere, that this is war between Islam and infidels. This narrative has gained strength in tribal areas. Every insurgency has an ideological base. Second point is to hold dialogue. You engage with these groups. Outright military action never comes out with a result in such situations. So, initiate a dialogue through tribal chiefs, Jirgas. All those who are willing to come within the ambit of peace and constitution should be accepted. Lastly, hardcore groups, those remain irreconcilable, should be dealt through military action. We think that military action is the last option.

What is the progress in talks?

Five weeks have passed and federal government has not told us what has been done regarding dialogue. The ball is in the federal government’s court. Apparently, there does not seem to be any progress.

There is a perception that PTI and Taliban are like-minded. To what extent this is true? 

Not at all! There is no question of that. When you say dialogue you do it with adversaries not with friends. We do not consider Taliban as friends. They are our adversaries. We need to initiate dialogue. There are a lot of people willing to reconcile because they are victims of drone or misled. There is no question of like mindedness. This label on our party is absolutely wrong. As information secretary, I myself have issued countless press releases in which we have condemned them and called them terrorists. So I don’t think like this. We have also condemned attack on Malala Yousafzai. We are the only party in Quetta which condemned Lashkar-e-Jhanvi by name and spoke for the Shiite community. A section of media propagates this because they love to hate Imran Khan. This is a small group of “warmongers” who think war is solution for every problem.

Do you agree with TTP ideology?

We condemn that ideology. Our ideology is the Constitution of Pakistan. And any solution, reconciliation has to be within the constitution. Our ideology is clear that we are Pakistani and we subscribe to constitution of the country. Five weeks ago we gave mandate to the federal government for peace and if this fails then there should be another APC to discuss next line of action.

Currently, TTP says that they are refusing talks. Then what?

Yes. I have heard that. When you start talks both sides raise maximum demands. Also, I think there is division in sections of TTP. There are groups who want to reconcile. There is a debate within us about the talks. Similarly, there is debate within them. At the end, you reconcile with those want to and fight with others

PTI is all for talks but Taliban have not stopped their attacks in KPK, a province ruled by your party.

I think there are groups within TTP. Those who don’t want talks to succeed, they are doing these things. Terrorism you are seeing now is related to internal conflict of TTP.

What future of talks you see with this split and internal conflict in Taliban?

You reduce the strength of the enemy. There is a kind of strange thing in certain minds that either talk or take military action. It is not an “either/or” situation. When you talk to defense experts they say military action is not a guarantee of success so they way I look at it is that there will be some talking some fighting.

Do you think TTP should register as a political party?

If they accept constitution of Pakistan, come in the mainstream and register as a political party, I must say it will be a victory.

Should TTP open its office?

If you want structured dialogue you must know who they are. They should open their office. The office will be first step to constitutional rule. I want to say one thing again that there are some who say we should talk to Baolchistan Liberation Army, which has done ethnic cleansing, killed Punjabis and threatened existence of Pakistan as a separatist movement. But when we talk about Taliban, they say we should kill them. This shows that problem is their religion. This is a contradiction. I think that BLA is a bigger ideological war.

Negating this war is a negation of whole narrative of fighting this war by Pakistani state as front row ally of US

I think we did not create our own narrative but adopted the American narrative. The then government allowed drones, participated in the war and fully attached with the U.S. Musharraf did a big mistake for which he is a culprit. There is another big contradiction. We failed to counter Taliban even with more than 1,000 air assaults, military operations and many people say Taliban are becoming more powerful. If they are becoming powerful or their discourse is dominating or prevailing then I must say something is wrong with our (state) strategy and narrative. That is why we have given counter-narrative. PTI is the only party which has given a comprehensive counter- narrative. Get out of this war, initiate dialogue and reconcile and fight with irreconcilables.

The writer is a journalist based in Lahore. He tweets @waqargillani