- Government committee to take up polio vaccination issue with Taliban
While negotiators from both government and Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) are yet to agree on a venue for second round of direct peace talks, Prof Muhammad Ibrahim Khan, intermediary of Taliban committee, said on Monday that the meeting between Taliban leadership and government committee will be held in Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) in the next few days.
Professor Ibrahim said that the location of the exact place and schedule of the meeting will be decided in next two to three days for which contacts were being made with the Taliban Shura.
Expressing confidence over efforts being made for restoration of peace, Prof Ibrahim has vowed that talks will bring peace to the country.
“Peace can only be achieved via negotiations and not military action.”
POLIO VACCINATION ON AGENDA:
According to Rustam Shah Mohmand, member of the government’s committee, government’s negotiators would take up the polio vaccination issue as one of their demands with Taliban leadership in the next meeting with TTP.
Shah said that government’s negotiation committee has made anti-polio vaccination part of the ongoing negotiations agenda with Taliban and it would be part of the discussion during the next meeting with the TTP’s Shura. He said that government had agreed to a phase-wise release of all prisoners against whom there is no evidence of involvement in militancy.
Shah said that both the Taliban and government were holding each other’s prisoners but the exact number was not known. Shah added that the Taliban will be pursued for permanent ceasefire.
According to FATA Secretariat officials, more than 250,000 children in the tribal belt have not been vaccinated since June 2012.
On June 25, 2012, Mullah Nazir and Hafiz Gul Bahadar factions of militants – considered as pro-Pakistan – had imposed banned on polio vaccination in South Waziristan and North Waziristan respectively. They distributed pamphlets stating that polio and other foreign-funded vaccination drives in the tribal areas would not be allowed and had threatened health workers to stay away from polio vaccination campaigns.
Not a single health worker has entered North Waziristan and some areas of South Waziristan and Bannu for almost two years after the ban put in place by the Taliban.
The total number of polio cases reported from FATA is 31 of which 28 are from NWA and two from South Waziristan.
