- Islamabad has to seize the day
Pakistan Army has destroyed all terrorist sanctuaries along the Durand Line. Intelligence-based operations that followed weeded out terrorist cells inside the country. Despite these measures the TTP, IS and other terrorist groups continue to launch attacks in Pakistan from sanctuaries inside Afghanistan. According to government sources 119 people, including 15 police personnel, were killed in Balochistan alone in 2018. Last week seven people died in a gun attack followed by a suicide blast in Dera Ismail Khan. On Saturday, six personnel of the Pakistan armed forces were martyred as terrorists by fire from the Afghan side of the border and four by their proxies in Balochistan.
There is a need on the part of the government to sort out the matter with the Afghan Taliban who either control or dominate most of the Afghan provinces on the other side of the Pak-Afghan border. Pakistan has faced sanctions on the presumption that it had provided sanctuaries to the Afghan Taliban and Haqqani Network. Despite this, it arranged meetings between the religious militia and the USA. Pakistan now needs to ask the Taliban to help put an end to terrorist attacks inside Pakistan.
An understanding was reached between Prime Minister Imran Khan and US President Donald Trump on urging the Taliban to enter into talks with the Afghan government to hammer out a political solution, with the former promising that Pakistan would do everything possible to ensure that the peace process went forward. The State Department has meanwhile approved a proposed $125 million support programme for Pakistan’s F-16s. It has however simultaneously reminded Pakistan government of its commitment to urge the Taliban to negotiate with the Afghan government.
The government and the establishment are on one page, something rare in Pakistan’s recent history. That the Prime Minster was accompanied by the COAS and ISI chief during the Washington visit is yet another indication of the goodwill prevailing. The Afghan Taliban have made it known that they are waiting for an invitation from Mr Khan to come to Pakistan for talks. This is an ideal time to persuade the Afghan Taliban to hold talks with the Afghan government and announce a ceasefire to end the ongoing bloodshed.