Pakistan could reconsider strategy for Afghanistan under Taliban: FM Bhutto

Pakistan could reconsider its strategy for dealing with Afghanistan's Taliban rulers, Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari has said, as he expressed disappointment over their failure to prevent the banned TTP from conducting cross-border terrorist attacks in his country.

Addressing a UN event in New York Bilawal said: "Pakistan will not tolerate cross-border terrorism by the TTP (Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan) or other terrorist groups, like the BLA (Balochistan Liberation Army).

He said that Pakistan could reconsider its strategy for dealing with Afghanistan's Taliban rulers, but it could not afford to disengage with Kabul, the Dawn newspaper reported.

Separately, in his address to a commemoration event to honour the victims of the December 16, 2014, terrorist attack on the Army Public School (APS) in Peshawar, Bilawal said that Kabul's Taliban rulers had failed Pakistan's hope and expectation of constraining the TTP from conducting cross-border terrorist attacks.

The TTP militants, who had come from Afghanistan, had killed 149 people - including 132 schoolchildren - in one of the worst terrorist attacks in Pakistan.

Bilawal recalled that the Afghan Taliban pledged to do so in Doha, where they signed a peace agreement with the United States and also in subsequent declarations.

But endeavours towards this end appear to have failed. The TTP seems to have been emboldened to declare war against Pakistan. Its attacks have intensified, he noted.

On being asked if Islamabad would consider disengaging with Afghanistan's Taliban rulers because they were allowing them to carry out the attacks, Bilawal said: I can't wish the Taliban away or Afghanistan away. They are a reality, and they are on my border."

Bur the modes and ways in which we are engaging, particularly within the Pakistani context, and as far as the TTP is concerned, perhaps that can be reconsidered, as far as the strategy is concerned," he said.

He said Pakistan has shared a comprehensive dossier with the secretary-general and the UN Security Council containing concrete evidence of such external support to the TTP and other terrorist groups operating against Pakistan.

We need to eliminate the safe havens of these terrorists; to cut off the sources of their financing and sponsorship, and to target and hold accountable individuals and entities responsible for the terrorist attacks or for sponsoring and financing such attacks, he said.

His remarks came days after the banned Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) last week called off an indefinite ceasefire agreed with the government in June and ordered its militants to carry out attacks across the country.

The TTP, also known as the Pakistan Taliban, was set up as an umbrella group of several militant outfits in 2007. Its main aim is to impose its strict brand of Islam across Pakistan.

The TTP announced a ceasefire with the government in June but the attacks on the security forces never stopped. The group never claimed responsibility and instead blamed splinter groups for those attacks.

The group, which is believed to be close to al-Qaeda, has been blamed for several deadly attacks across Pakistan, including an attack on army headquarters in 2009, assaults on military bases, and the 2008 bombing of the Marriott Hotel in Islamabad.

His comments also came amid tensions between Islamabad and Afghanistan's Taliban rulers over recent incidents of unprovoked cross-border shelling.