ISLAMABAD: Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif yesterday warned peace could not be achieved “by unleashing senseless force”, in his first public speech since a US drone strike killed Taliban leader Hakimullah Mehsud.
The killing of Mehsud on Friday as government representatives prepared to meet his Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) faction triggered an angry response from Islamabad while Afghan president Hamid Karzai said the strike “took place at an unsuitable time”.
Pakistan’s Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar on Saturday accused the US of sabotaging peace efforts with the strike.
Though Sharif did not mention the strike directly, he stressed his desire to “give peace a chance”.
“My government is resolved to bringing the cycle of bloodshed and violence to an end. But it cannot be done overnight, nor can it be done by unleashing senseless force against our citizens, without first making every effort to bring the misguided and confused elements of society, back to the mainstream,” he said in a speech after army exercises near Bahawalpur in Punjab province.
Sharif was to hold a meeting of his cabinet security committee after Nisar said “every aspect” of Islamabad’s ties with Washington would be reviewed.
Karzai told a US Congress delegation in Kabul that he hoped the peace process, still at an embryonic stage, did not suffer as a result, according to a statement released by his office. The TTP operates separately from the Afghan Taliban but notionally pledge allegiance to the same leader, Mullah Omar.
Karzai has been seeking to open peace talks with the Afghan Taliban to end 12 years of war, but the militants have refused to negotiate with his appointees, dismissing him as a US puppet.
Karzai, who recently held talks with Sharif in London, said fraught relations between Kabul and Islamabad had improved.
Pakistan was a key backer of the 1996-2001 Taliban regime in Kabul and is believed to shelter some of the movement’s top leaders. Sharif came to power in May partly on a pledge to hold talks to try to end the TTP’s bloody insurgency that has fuelled instability.
Opposition parties led by Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf have demanded the government close Pakistan’s roads to convoys supplying Nato forces in Afghanistan. The party has said it will block Nato convoys in the northwestern province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa where it is in power, which would cut off one of the main crossing points into Afghanistan.
Punjab Chief Minister Mian Shahbaz Sharif, meanwhile, said US officials had assured him that drone attacks would not be conducted during the peace process with the Taliban. He said it was unfortunate that high-level assurance was not followed. US attitude is damaging the serious efforts for the restoration of peace which is indirectly encouraging terrorism in the country, he lamented. “If US really wants to wipe out terrorism then it will have to cooperate with Pakistan,” Geo News quoted Shahbaz as saying.
In Riyadh, US Secretary of State John Kerry defended the drone strike that killed Mehsud but said the US was sensitive to any Pakistani concerns.
Agencies
