DERA ISMAIL KHAN: Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf chairman Imran Khan has said that Khyber Pakhtunkhwa is suffering because of delay in initiating talks with the Taliban by the federal government.
The PTI leader repeated his suggestion that the Taliban should be allowed to open their office and asked the PML-N government to start negotiations with insurgents forthwith.
Talking to journalists at Gandapur Cottage in Kulachi on Saturday after offering fateha for the departed soul of KP Law Minister Israrullah Khan Gandapur, who was killed in a suspected suicide attack on Eid day, Mr Khan said that the all-party conference held in Islamabad last month had empowered the federal government to start dialogue with the Taliban to stop bloodshed in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Federally Administered Tribal Areas. However, he regretted, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif was still indecisive.
“The center has neither started talks nor has it informed the KP government about progress on the matter,” he said, adding that KP had been suffering because of delay in negotiations.
Ansarul Mujahideen, a little-known militant outfit has claimed responsibility for the bomb attack in which seven other people were also killed along side Mr Gandapur.
Mr Khan termed Mr Gandapur’s assassination an irreparable loss for the province.
“If America can allow Afghan Taliban to open their office in Qatar, then there is no harm in allowing the local Taliban to have an office in Pakistan,” he reiterated his stance.
Mr Khan said that maintaining law and order was the responsibility of federal government in which it had failed, adding that the PTI’s government in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa had chalked out its own security plan.
He pointed out that the proscribed Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan had not claimed responsibility for three major suicide and bomb attacks in KP.
