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Pakistan rejects Taliban truce offer

27 December 2012 18:05 (UTC +04:00)

Baku-APA. Pakistan on Thursday rejected as unacceptable a conditional truce offer by the Taliban and said the armed militant groups cannot dictate the state, APA reports quoting Xinhua.

Local media reported that the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan or the TTP has hinted at a cease-fire with the Pakistani government on condition that Pakistan should end participation in the Afghan war, reshape the foreign policy and the country's Constitution in accordance to the Islamic Sharia.

Geo TV reported that a TTP leader Ismatullah Muavia in a letter to its anchor offered the truce.

Pakistan's Interior Minister Rehman Malik on Thursday dismissed the offer and said the Taliban's offer of conditional respite is unacceptable.

"Taliban leader Ismatullah Muavia through his offer of conditional truce has tried to dictate the government, which is totally unacceptable," Malik said to media at Sukkhar airport in Sindh province.

He stated that Muavia was a member of the banned extremist group 'Lashkar-e- Jhangvi,' which is behind series of attacks on security forces and Shiite Muslims.

Malik said the TTP is facing rift and that is why the offer for a truce came from a TTP leader and not directly from its chief, Hakimullah Mehsud.

He again asked the Afghan government to hand over a Pakistani Taliban leader, Maulvi Fazalullah, who he said is hiding in the border regions of Afghanistan.

In reply to a question, he said no foreign hand is behind all the terrorist activities taking place within the country but Pakistani militants are to be blamed for the attacks.