Zee Media Bureau
Islamabad: Pakistani Taliban has declared a month-long ceasefire to revive peace talks, a media report said on Saturday.
Pakistani Taliban spokesman announced a one-month long ceasefire today aimed at reviving failed peace talks with the government.
"The senior leadership of the Taliban advised all subgroups to respect Taliban`s call for a ceasefire and abide by it and completely refrain from all jihadi activities in this time period," the statement said.
The development came three days after the outlawed Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) had rejected the Nawaz Sharif government’s call for an unconditional ceasefire.
“If this is what we have to do, we would have done it 10 years ago,” the Dawn on Wednesday quoted TTP spokesman Shahidullah Shahid as saying on Tuesday.
Shahidullah had also blamed intelligence agencies for Monday`s killing of TTP`s senior commander Asmatullah Shaheen Bhittani.
In recent weeks the Pakistan air force has bombed militant targets in the the northwest, and there is a speculation that the army will launch an offensive in North Waziristan, a tribal region bordering Afghanistan.
Meanwhile, a meeting of the Pakistan government and Taliban-nominated negotiators will be held on Monday which is likely to be chaired by Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan, a cleric considered close to the banned militant group said today.
With PTI inputs
