The TTP (Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan, the umbrella group of Pakistani extremists) has been insisting till very recently that they represented all the groups committing terror in Pakistan. Only when the terrorist acts continued unabated after the negotiations started that the TTP (and their vocal sympathizers) changed tack and started distancing themselves from the sporadic violence. Even then only proforma regret was …
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Writing in The Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History in their 2011 article titled “The Paradoxes of Negotiating with Terrorist and Insurgent Organizations”, Isabelle Duyvesteyn and Bart Schuurman maintain that such negotiations are neither as straightforward nor indeed as desirable a means of conflict resolution as they may seem. Citing examples from various conflicts, the authors maintain that in …
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Long awaited first round of talks with the (Pakistani government and) Taliban ended on somewhat of a positive note, albeit without breaking any new ground. After persistent delays and the government and the TTP (Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan, the umbrella organization of several dozen terrorist groups) team playing hide and seek the very fact that the talks did take place seemed to …
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