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Imran accuses US of derailing peace talks with TTP
[Pak Daily Times] Pakistain Tehrik-e-Insaf...a political party in Pakistan. PTI was founded by former Pakistani cricket captain and philanthropist Imran Khan. The party's slogan is Justice, Humanity and Self Esteem, each of which is open to widely divergent interpretations.... Chairman Imran Khan  ... aka Taliban Khan, who ain't the brightest knife in the national drawer... accused the United States on Friday of deliberately destroying any chance of meaningful peace talks with the Pak Taliban by killing the insurgency's leader in a drone strike a week ago. The Taliban have since rejected talks with the government and threatened a wave of Dire Revenge™ attacks for the death of their chief, Hakimullah Mehsud, on November 1. Imran told Rooters in an interview that the United States had scuppered negotiations at a time when the bully boyz seemed to have become more open to them. "If there was a chance of peace talks, we should have grabbed it," he said at his sprawling estate outside Islamabad. "The Americans basically could have taken out Hakimullah whenever they wanted. I think the timing was to sabotage the grinding of the peace processor. "The Americans think that if there is fighting going on here ...in our tribal belt, there is less chance of forces of Evil going over to the other side (Afghanistan) to fight the Americans at a time when they are withdrawing." Washington has long put pressure on Pakistain to do more to tackle the insurgency but the new government of Prime Minister  Nawaz Sharif... served two non-consecutive terms as prime minister, heads the Pakistain Moslem League (Nawaz). Noted for his spectacular corruption, the 1998 Pak nuclear test, border war with India, and for being tossed by General Musharraf... , elected in May, wants to find a negotiated solution to years of violence. Attacks against the army and civilians, however, have been on the rise since Nawaz came to power, causing concern in a region already nervous about the planned withdrawal of US-led troops from Afghanistan in 2014. Earlier this week US Secretary of State John F. I was in Vietnam, you knowKerry Former Senator-for-Life from Massachussetts, self-defined war hero, speaker of French, owner of a lucky hat,conqueror of Cambodia, and current Secretary of State... suggested the drone attack was justifiable, while at the time saying Washington was sensitive to Pak concerns. Mehsud had been tentatively open to ceasefire talks with the government, but new Taliban leader Mullah Fazlullah  ...son-in-law of holy man Sufi Mohammad. Known as Mullah FM, Fazlullah had the habit of grabbing his FM mike when the mood struck him and bellowing forth sermons. Sufi suckered the Pak govt into imposing Shariah on the Swat Valley and then stepped aside whilst Fazlullah and his Talibs imposed a reign of terror on the populace like they hadn't seen before, at least not for a thousand years or so. For some reason the Pak intel services were never able to locate his transmitter, much less bomb it. After ruling the place like a conquered province for a year or so, Fazlullah's Talibs began gobbling up more territory as they pushed toward Islamabad, at which point as a matter of self-preservation the Mighty Pak Army threw them out and chased them into Afghanistan... strongly opposes negotiations. Imran said missiles fired by unmanned US aircraft in North Wazoo have only fuelled anti-American sentiment. He agrees with Nawaz on the need for peace talks with the Pakistain Taliban, an al Qaeda-linked group fighting to topple the government. Imran, whose political party is now in charge of the volatile Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa ... formerly NWFP, still Terrorism Central... , has threatened to cut NATO ...the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. A cautionary tale of cost-benefit analysis.... supply lines through his region from November 20 if US drone strikes do not end. Blocking NATO trucks at Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa border checkpoints could disrupt the operations of US-led forces in Afghanistan but any decision to close supply routes through Pakistain would have to come from the central government in Islamabad. "They (the Taliban) think ... we are the slaves of America, that the Pakistain government is taking money from the US and fighting its (America's) war and killing its own people," Imran said. "Therefore they have declared jihad (holy war) against the Pakistain Army and Pak security forces. The dialogue should (take place) to take that narrative away." Despite Nawaz's emphasis on talks, no meaningful negotiations have taken place since his election and Fazlullah's rise could signal the start of a new period of uncertainty and violence in the unstable region. Posted by: Fred 2013-11-09 |
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