Efforts underway to bring TTP to table
Amid an uptick in terrorist activity in the country, Interior Minister Rana Sanaullah on Wednesday assured the nation that the government was taking steps to counter terrorism.
Addressing a press conference in Islamabad, Sanaullah said the state’s efforts against terrorism could not be publicised as it would compromise its success.
“But this should not be taken to mean that nothing is being done,” the minister said, adding that tremendous efforts against terrorism were underway and the nation should rest assured about the matter.
Commenting on the recent meeting of the National Security Committee, he said that the forum had resolved to adopt a “zero tolerance” policy against terrorism with “no mixed messages and no differentiation between good or bad terrorists”.
“Whoever is involved in terrorism is a terrorist,” he asserted.
Sanaullah further said that authorities would take pre-emptive action against terrorist schemes and those involved would be apprehended in order to prevent such incidents from occurring in the first place.
He said that the NSC had also decided that the provincial counterterrorism departments would be provided training by the federal government in order to make them more effective.
The minister said that the forum had also discussed setting up of a national body for coordinating with the various CTDs in an effort to make them more efficient.
At the same time, Sanaullah said that efforts were underway to bring the outlawed TTP to the negotiation table but the group would first have to set aside arms and surrender before the law and the Constitution.
He said Pakistan needed to deal with the situation in such a manner as to keep the TTP at the “lowest level” and keep the number of terrorist incidents to a minimum.
