Noor Wali Mehsud, the supremo of the UN designated terror outfit Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) also known as Pakistan Taliban has declared that there has not been any breakthrough in ongoing talks with the Pakistani army.
Mehsud also cast in stone another demand: FATA’s merger which took place in 2018 must be reversed.
“Our demands are clear and especially the end of FATA merger into Khyber Pakhtunkhwa is our main and most important demand, which we cannot back down from,” Mehsud said in a released video clip by the TTP’s propaganda media Umar Media.
Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), earlier known as Pakistan’s former tribal areas, was merged into mainland Khyber Pakhtunkhwa through an amendment to Pakistan’s constitution in 2018. According to the Pakistani government it can't reverse the merger and it was not negotiable. But the TTP wants the demerger of the FATA region and wants to rule the region according to Sharia Law.
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TTP has released interview of its chief, Mufti Noor Wali Mehsud on ongoing peace talks.1-General Faiz Hamid is leading talks from Pak side
2-We won’t back down from FATA merger’s reversal demand
3-Some of our prisoners have been released
4-No major breakthrough in talks pic.twitter.com/NqpBI8JiDJ
— The Khorasan Diary (@khorasandiary) June 29, 2022
In his first interview after the Taliban’s takeover of power in Afghanistan, the TTP chief acknowledged that the former chief of ISI and Corps Commander Peshawar Lt General Faiz Hameed has been representing the Pakistan government and Sirajuddin Haqqani chief of the Haqqani network, who is also Taliban government’s interior minister is not facilitating but mediating the in-peace talks.
“The Talibans are our brother and there is no pressure from them,” said Mehsud.
In a first, the TTP chief admitted that his fighters targeted the Chinese ambassador in Quetta in April last year for China’s exploitation of their territories with the help of Pakistan.
Though the TTP has released only two-minute video clips of its chief’s 15-minute-long interview, according to the sources, it has plans to release small clips on a daily basis for the next few days. Sources say that the TTP chief has also talked about the group's connection with the Baloch separatist outfits.
“TTP has claimed that a new group from Noshki, Balochistan… joined the organisation under the leadership of Noor Wali Mehsud who has promised that the TTP will continue its struggle to liberate Baloch lands.”
