ISLAMABAD: It appears the government of Pakistan has taken a complete U-turn on its anti-terror strategy at a time when the United States is trying to bargain a truce with the Afghan Taliban before moving out of Afghanistan and the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan is about to make a fresh offer of peace talks to end their bloody war.
Almost all political parties including the religious parties have been of the opinion that using military might has not worked according to the expectations and talks option should be replaced as a security policy to end the bloodshed.
Pakistan Tehrik-e-Insaaf and the ruling Pakistan Muslim League-N have forcefully pleaded for immediate dialogue with the militants in their election campaign.
Now that the interior minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan has announced that the proposed multi-party conference on national security is to be held in the last week of August there is no word about Imran Khan’s participation in it, although Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif had twice postponed the scheduled conference in July to persuade the PTI chairman to participate in the conference.
An impression was given by the ruling PML-N leadership that the interior minister, in consultation with defence and foreign ministries, has prepared a policy paper on the national security to be circulated among the participants of the APC.
But interior minister’s statement has negated this impression as he said the proposed draft would be presented to Prime Minister Sharif in two weeks time.
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