July 5, 2011 3:39:09 pm
The Pakistani establishment and its political leaders must completely abandon the policy of patronising and strengthening the Taliban and other militant groups because allowing them to increase their hold in the country would amount to the negation of Pakistan,former Attorney General Iqbal Haider has said.
Once again the suggestion to hold negotiations with the Taliban is being urged and pleaded forcefully by the NATO countries,in particular by the US leadership,as well as by some of the political leaders and intellectuals in Pakistan, Haider wrote in a piece for The News.
It is surprising that all these advocates of negotiations either consciously or unconsciously forget the fact that this exercise was undertaken repeatedly on the pretext of national interest by General Pervez Musharraf,who had signed about five or six agreements with various groups of Taliban and the extremist religious terrorists forces such as Fazal Ullah,during his long dictatorial rule, he added.
It would not be prudent now to ignore the consequences of the repeated agreements signed by Musharraf and even by the present elected government in May 2008,which were totally in favour of Taliban,said Haider,a former Senator.
The catastrophic impact of all these agreements with Taliban is rise and rise of intolerance,militancy and terrorism in more and more territories of Pakistan, he stressed,clarifying that he is using the term Taliban for all their factions,groups of al-Qaeda and all the extremists,militant religious or Jihadi forces under whatever name or banner.
To meet present challenges,it is high time that Pakistani establishment and its political leaders must completely abandon the most detrimental strategy and policy of General Musharraf who was consciously patronizing and strengthening the Taliban including Jihadis,religious militant forces professing a peculiar brand of belief and determined to takeover the state of Pakistan through terrorist methods, Haider said.
None of the Jihadis,Taliban or religious extremists have ever been an asset nor Afghanistan have ever been strategic depth of Pakistan,he pointed out.
It is crystal clear that Pakistan and Taliban cannot coexist,the former Pakistani attorney general stated,adding that if the Taliban are allowed to survive and increase their hold in the country,it would amount to the negation of Pakistan as well as the negation of the objects and purposes for which the nation was created.
Hence,we have no option but to cleanse Pakistan of all the Taliban groups,extremist obscurantist religious forces and all kinds of terrorists,so that Pakistan can be made a non-violent,peaceful,moderate,tolerant,progressive and modern state, he concluded.
