ISLAMABAD:
Federal Minister for Parliamentary Affairs Dr. Tariq Fazal Chaudhry on Saturday informed the Senate that Pakistan remains committed to resolving all issues through dialogue with Afghanistan.
However, he said that Pak-Afghan talks have been facing delays due to non-delivery of written guarantees from the Afghan side.
Responding to points raised by Mashal Azam in the Senate, he said the government fully supported the ongoing peace talks between Pakistan and Afghanistan. “This government has always believed that all outstanding issues with Afghanistan must be resolved through negotiations,” he noted.
However, he said that despite verbal acknowledgments by the Taliban regime regarding the presence of TTP safe havens, the refusal to provide written assurances had resulted in the current stalemate in negotiations.
Chaudhry said Pakistan would continue to pursue diplomatic channels to achieve lasting peace and stability in the region.
The Taliban regime will continue its ceasefire with Pakistan on Saturday, despite the failure of their latest talks. The two sides met in Turkey on Thursday to finalize a ceasefire agreed on October 19 in Qatar, following deadly clashes between the South Asian neighbours.
Both have remained tight-lipped about the content of the discussions, which are known to have dealt only with long-standing security concerns.
At a press conference later, Mujahid stressed that the ceasefire “will hold”. “There is no problem with the ceasefire agreed earlier with Pakistan, it will hold,” he said. Neither Islamabad nor mediators immediately commented on the announcement that the talks had failed.
Information Minister Attaullah Tarar had earlier hinted that talks in Turkey were falling through, saying it was up to Afghanistan to fulfill promises to crack down on terrorism “which they have so far failed to do”. “Pakistan will continue to exercise all necessary options to protect the security of its people and its sovereignty,” he wrote.
Citing a precedent from 2018, when Nawaz Sharif, had signed election tickets for the Senate as president of Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N), he said the Supreme Court of Pakistan later ruled that a convicted person could not issue party tickets, which caused the cancellation of those nominations and the election of candidates as independent members.
He said it was therefore misleading and undemocratic to claim that constitutional amendments could only be made with the consent of a convicted person. “The power to amend the constitution rests solely with Parliament – the Senate and the National Assembly – through a two-thirds majority,” he said.
