Negotiations on the table

Just two days ago terrorists stormed a check post in Frontier Region (FR) Peshawar killing 6 FC personnel and wounding seven. The militants attacked the check post late night at 12am, after fierce fighting these heavily armed militants overran the check post. The wounded hid under the bushes to protect themselves from being killed. The FC personnel were short of ammunition and the late arrival of reinforcements caused the incident.The Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) claimed responsibility for the attack and according to TTP's spokesperson Ehsanullah Ehsan, this attack was carried out to seek revenge for the death of TTP's deputy chief Waliur Rehman, in a drone attack in May this year. He further criticised PML-N government for its non-seriousness on the peace talks offered by the TTP. The question is should we accept such terrorist's peace offer? Can accepting their offer bring peace to the region? Will we be stopping killings of our brave Army comrades if we accepted their offer? I simply say no!Actually I personally believe that these are agents on the payroll of anti-Islam and anti-Pakistan agencies who want to spread chaos in our country. Pakistan is in a state of internal imbalance, political turmoil, militancy, corruption. While the Pak Army is called in to aid the civil administration whenever a disaster happens, be it the floods or terrorism. An army is to defend the borders and to eliminate any possible threats to national sovereignty, but when it's dragged into the state of affairs, it won't be able to cater to every problem. In the current scenario it's time that the government does its job in a rightful way and let the army do its work, only then can the Pak Army be able to enhance its professional abilities and handle the militancy in tribal areas.If anyone wants to accord a peace treaty with the state, it would have to lay down its arms and sit on the negotiating table, other than that it would mean accepting the writ of the terrorists and the results would be disastrous. Saving Pakistan should be our first priority because it's the country that gave us an identity and without it we would be nothing.SYED MUHAMMAD ABUBAKAR, Lahore, July 8.

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