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ISLAMABAD – The major opposition parties in the Senate Saturday demanded of the ruling Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) to immediately take the parliament into confidence about its on-going talks with some groups of banned Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), seeking reconciliation.
The government does not have the right or mandate to enter into talks with the banned TTP or any other entity without taking parliament into confidence, they also said.
A day earlier, Prime Minister Imran Khan in an interview to TRT World had said that his government was in talks with some groups of the banned outfit to achieve peace and reconciliation. PM also offered general amnesty to the group if it laid down arms.
The government has yet to make public the details of such talks as to what incentive is being offered to the banned group which mainly operated from Afghanistan and what conditions the government has set for laying down arms.
The incumbent and all previous government during last two decades have been holding TTP responsible for carrying out major terrorist attacks in the country alleging that it has links and support of some anti-Pakistan international forces.
Former chairman Senate and Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) stalwart, Senator Raza Rabbani, while talking to a select group of journalists lamented that the PTI government has kept the parliament in the dark on important matters of national security.
“The parliament should be locked and its keys should have thrown away, rather than suffering humiliation and being shown it to be redundant every day,” he criticised.
He said that it was now the fate of the people and of parliament that they used to get to know about major decisions of national security either through PTI leadership’s interviews to foreign media or proceedings of other parliaments.
“These are issues that concern the future of the entire nation and cannot be taken by a small coterie to the exclusion of parliament, civil society and all other stakeholders,” said Senator Rabbani.
He urged the government to build a cross party and stakeholders’ consensus to establish a national ownership on such matters of national security.
He demanded of the government to summon the parliament immediately to discuss this issue. “If the government fails to call a session, then the opposition must requisition each house, separately.”
PPP lawmaker said that the government has also failed to take the parliament into confidence on the negotiations of giving the US air and ground corridors. This fact came to light in the hearing before the US Senate, the other day, he added.
He concluded that this was in contradiction to the Terms of Agreement adopted by a Joint Sitting of Parliament on 12th April, 2012.
Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) Senator Irfan-ul-Haque Siddiqui, in a statement said that PTI government’s talks with banned TTP without taking the parliament into confidence have raised many questions. “It is a sensitive national issue and it was inappropriate to keep the talks secret.”
PM Khan in his interview also said that these talks were being held in Afghanistan and Afghan Taliban were facilitating the negotiation process.
Senator Siddiqui reminded that PML-N leader and then Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif had taken all political parties into confidence in January 2014 before initiating peace talks with TTP. He said that then talks committee that was headed by him failed to achieve its objectives but the move helped to develop a national consensus that paved the way of Operation Zarb-e-Azb and its consequent success.
“The incumbent government should take the parliament, all political parties and masses into confidence before taking any step at this front,” he said, adding that country had already paid heavy price of such behind the scene talks.