Opinion | Why negotiating with the Pakistani Taliban is a terrible idea
Washington PostJul 06, 2022
On Monday, the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) — a group ideologically aligned yet separate from Afghanistan’s Taliban — announced that it had called off a five-month-long ceasefire with the Pakistan government and ordered its fighters to restart attacks.
A day after the end of the truce, brokered by Afghanistan's Taliban, Pakistan's junior foreign minister reportedly traveled to Kabul to meet with the militant group to discuss several issues, including security.
Jihadists and peace don’t co-exist. The ceasefire was supposed to halt the violence — it didn’t. It did, however, bring a nuclear state to its knees, which is unsurprising given that Pakistan negotiated with terrorists who want nothing else other than to see the destruction of a country they regard as fundamentally un-Islamic. Now, the government must make some harsh decisions before the country becomes a war-torn wasteland.
Although the likelihood of a sustainable ceasefire with the TTP is slim — as evidenced by this latest development —Islamabad entered the agreement with no option other than to negotiate. While the TTP may be separate from the Afghan Taliban — a longstanding ally of Pakistan — they're two faces of the same coin. Needing to fortify ties with its neighboring country, Islamabad made the best it could out of an impossible situation.