Anxiety builds over talks with Taliban

Pakistan: Every time Pakistan hammered out peace agreements with militants, the results were disastrous. The groups grew stronger, and the toll their bomb blasts took on civilians steadily rose.

That history explains why anxiety is rippling through the country as talk builds of the prospect for peace negotiations with the Pakistani Taliban, the home-grown insurgency responsible for most of the suicide bombings and terrorist strikes that have killed thousands of people in recent years.

Pakistani leaders have expressed a new-found interest in tackling the problem of militancy through peace talks rather than military confrontation.

At a September 29 conference of more than 50 political leaders, participants signed a resolution endorsing the idea of negotiations with militants.

"‘Give peace a chance' must be the guiding central principle," the resolution declared.

Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani said in October that the government was prepared to negotiate with militants willing to lay down their arms. Elements within the Pakistani Taliban have signalled their willingness to talk, Interior Minister Rehman Malik said recently.

Only recourse

The move to negotiate with the Pakistani Taliban comes at a time when, across the border in Afghanistan, peace talks with the Afghan Taliban are seen as Washington's only recourse after battling those insurgents for 10 years.

On both sides of the border, the prospect of peace negotiations is fraught with risk and uncertainty. In Afghanistan, the government's bid to reconcile with Afghan Taliban leaders suffered a severe blow in September with the assassination of President Hamid Karzai's chief negotiator, former Afghan President Burhanuddin Rabbani.

Afghan officials accused Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence agency of involvement in the killing, a charge Pakistan denied. In Pakistan, a peace accord could give insurgents the ideal tool to expand both influence and territory.

Like the Afghan Taliban, the Pakistani Taliban is made up of factions united in the goal of toppling the current government and imposing Islamic law.

The Pakistani Taliban maintains links with Al Qaida, the Afghan Taliban and other militant groups entrenched in Pakistan's tribal belt.

So far, there has been no endorsement of any overtures from the Pakistani military, historically the ultimate voice in the country's strategy against militants. But at a briefing last month for members of the parliament's defence committees, Pakistani army chief General Ashfaq Kayani said any decision for talks with the Pakistani Taliban would have to be made by the country's civilian government.

A lawmaker who attended the briefing said army leaders made it clear that "if the government wants to give negotiations a chance, the army will wait for the results of those negotiations".

In the last few years, Pakistan has deployed more than 140,000 troops to battle the Pakistani Taliban across most of the tribal belt along the Afghan border. The army has retaken large swathes of territory once held by the militant group, but the Taliban still controls pockets throughout the area and continues to carry out attacks on targets including military checkpoints, mosques and markets.

Negotiating with the Pakistani Taliban would represent a marked shift in strategy for Islamabad, and some analysts are doubtful it would work.

Bad idea

"It's pretty clear it would be a bad idea," said Cyril Almeida, a columnist for Dawn, a leading Pakistani English-language daily.

"Past peace agreements gave the militants breathing room and space to enlarge their control. And there's no reason to expect that this time, if they pursue another deal, the result would be any different."

The last peace agreement with militants, reached between Pakistan and Taliban insurgents in early 2009 in the picturesque Swat Valley tourist region in the north, collapsed when militants refused to lay down their arms and instead expanded their reach to within 60 miles of Islamabad.

That spring, the military launched an assault that retook the valley.

— Los Angeles Times