Islamabad: In a turnabout the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) said on Monday that it was no longer interested in peace talks with authorities.

TTP spokesman Ehsanullah Ehsan told a private channel that the authorities were not serious about following through with negotiations.

The Taliban statement came as a pair of suicide bombers attacked a court complex in the northwestern city of Peshawar.

One of the attackers was shot to death, but the other detonated his explosives in a packed courtroom, killing five people and wounding more than 40 in the attack. A suicide bomber posing as a legal clerk blew himself up and his companion opened fire, officials said.

The attackers stormed the crowded court complex in the city of Peshawar, less than two months before expected national elections.

A security guard who was injured described how the two young men had tried to get past his checkpoint.

“They introduced themselves as court clerks and refused a body search. One of them pulled out a pistol and fired on me after I insisted on a search,” Tahir Khan, 36, said from hospital.

Local TV footage showed shards of glass and broken window scattered on the floor of a court building with shattered cabinet doors.

“It was an act of terrorism and the target was the judicial complex,” senior police officer Masood Khan Afridi. “We have cleared the whole area.”

Afridi denied reports that some judges and lawyers had been held hostage inside the courts.

The Taliban have been waging a bloody insurgency against the government for over five years that has killed thousands of people.

Earlier last month the outlawed militant group, which has waged war against the state since 2007, had announced its willingness for conditional peace talks.

Two conferences of leaders of mainstream religious and political parties had supported talks within the ambit of the country’s constitution, saying the next government emerging from elections expected in May should handle the issue of talks with TTP.

In the interview to the channel, the TTP spokesman warned citizens to avoid participation in what he called the “un-Islamic democratic system serving the interests only of infidels and enemies of Islam.”

He said that the TTP has specifically advised the public to stay away from gatherings of the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP), Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) and the Awami National Party (ANP), which has ruled Khyber Pakhtunkhwa for the last five years.

The group first said it was open to negotiations at the end of last year in a letter sent to a local newspaper and a video released by Pakistani Taliban chief Hakimullah Mehsud.

Rehman Malik, who was interior minister until the government’s term ended over the weekend, said in February that Islamabad was ready to hold peace talks, and appeared to drop an earlier demand that the Taliban lay down their weapons and renounce violence prior to negotiations — a position rejected by the militants.

Politicians from the country’s main political parties also called for peace talks with the Taliban in February, at a meeting held in Islamabad to discuss the issue.

But Pakistani Taliban spokesman Ahsanullah Ahsan said in a video sent to reporters on Monday that the group “has temporarily postponed the offer of negotiations” after a “non-serious response” by the government.

He accused the army of continuing its war against the Taliban in order to receive military aid from the United States.

“Generals and politicians are sacrificing the country for their own interests,” said Ahsan.

He called on Pakistanis to boycott upcoming national elections in May, saying Islamic law should be enforced instead.

“If this system is not rejected, the long, dark night of oppression will linger,” said Ahsan.

He advised people to avoid rallies held by the Pakistan People’s Party, which led the latest government, and by two other parties that have strongly opposed the militants, the Muttahida Qaumi Movement and the Awami National Party.

The Taliban’s warning raises the worrying prospect of deadly violence in the run-up to the election. A caretaker government is slated to take over and rule the country until elections are held.

 

— With inputs from agencies