In one of the famous short stories, a student and his teacher are travelling to a place. They have a donkey, a bowl for food and a cup for drinking tea. In the same way, they have very less money to buy food or any other edible. The student has extreme respect for his teacher and tries his best to facilitate and prefer his teacher. In the same way, the teacher is very pleased of his obedient student and tries his best to be kind to him. With these good feelings from both the sides, they are having a wonderful journey and both are happy of each other.

They ride on the donkey with turns and each of them tries to let the other ride more on donkey. In the same way, when they sit for meal, each tries to eat less and ask the other to eat more. In such congenial circumstances, they continue their journey which is not much liked by the evil forces. A Satan takes the responsibility to arouse disagreement between them and occupies the mind and body of the teacher. Now, the teacher and his behavior absolutely change. Now, he becomes more greedy and selfish. While riding on the donkey, he tries to sit most of the time on animal, forcing his student to walk.

In the same way, he eats the share of the student as well on the meal but on the other hand, the mind and body of student are occupied by good forces and he happily tolerates his master. In response to all these unfair practices, he never complains or does anything in retaliation and never gets upset. The teacher tries his best to make him angry but all in vain so in the end he says, ‘Why don’t you get angry and fight with me.’ The student gives away a broad smile for this.

 The story of negotiations with militants and anti-state forces is not new in our country. In this connection, many Jirgas were formed, a High Peace Council was established, many foreign visits were made and hundreds of Taliban members were released but the whole process is still at the same place where it started. Right from the inception of this democratic government, different efforts were made to start negotiations with Taliban and other stakeholders of this erroneous problem but nothing was availed except that millions of dollars were spent on various meetings, foreign visits and release of Taliban members.

It is a fact that international media and democratic nations of the world believe in the importance of talks and resolving the conflict with mutual understanding and number of initiatives were taken both by Afghan government and world powers present in Afghanistan but these efforts could never stop the targeted killing of prominent Afghan leaders, roadside bombings, suicide attacks and similar acts of unrest and terrorism.

After Mian Nawaz Sharif came into power for third time in Pakistan this year, he was very anxious and excited to bring an end to the worst security conditions in the history of Pakistan and thus announced to call for a grand All-parties conference to resolve the issues with TTP (Tehreek-e-Taliban, Pakistan). In this conference, all the prominent leaders of Pakistan sat together to come up with a mutually agreed and understood path to follow in talks with Taliban. These talks were also closely observed by the media and political bodies of Afghanistan as Taliban factions functional in both the countries have close ties with each other and any such successful effort could have given an opportunity to take the same initiative in Afghan soil as well.

The conference ended with a pledge to come up with a single voice to hold talks with Taliban and bring an end to the tyranny and violence that has left thousands dead in our neighboring country. Common public and media were happy as to see an end to a decade long violence. But these pleasant feelings were shocked when Taliban attacked a convoy of Pakistan Army and killed two high ranking Army officials along with a number of soldiers. Nawaz administration came into a fix when Taliban claimed the responsibility for this attack and people and media started rising doubts about the fate of these talks. Anyhow, a severe blow came to the process after a few days when Peshawar city was rocked with three incidents of large suicide attacks that left more than 100 civilians dead. One of the most deadliest and defamed was the attack on a Church in the city where the innocent worshippers had gathered for a Sunday service. Although Taliban denied the responsibility of this attack but media could not find anyone else to blame.

After all these, circumstances got so worse that the talks went behind the scene and it also became like one of the numerous series of talks that government of Pakistan undertook with Taliban but were never successfully accomplished. It is worth mentioning here that with the numerous series of talks with militants, government of Pakistan also carried out almost a dozen of military operations. Till last reports, army is still deployed in the sensitive area of Swat which was once controlled by Taliban and adjacent capital Islamabad came under the threat of falling into their control.

When two parties sit on a talking table, both of them come up with demands and try their best to agree upon the conditions that should be acceptable for both the sides. While talking with Taliban, both the TTP and Pakistani government had their demands. Government of Pakistan wanted to cease violence and suicide attacks, accept the rule of law and writ of government in all the parts of country and other similar demands. In the same way, Taliban also had a comprehensive list of demands which included of many demands like release of their colleagues, end of military operations and others. All these demands can be, more or less, agreed upon and a middle path can be achieved but a demand by Taliban, be it in Pakistan or Afghanistan or any other country of the world, can never be accepted and it is their demand to abolish the democratic setup, the constitution of country and establish an Islamic system of government. When we talk of Islamic government, it is respected by all but there are many issues which are very concerning in this regard. The question that lingers in minds is that, ‘How much Taliban are capable of explaining and making the true and practical shape of an Islamic state and its governing laws and how much they are capable of implementing these laws?’

Anyhow, these issues are too much complicated and much has been written or said about these. Whatever may be the strategy to implement; sincerity and honesty is the first and foremost condition for the success of such talks. It is also said that numerous secret services and agencies of world are involved to support the militants and spoil the series of such talks so these secret hands should be cut off to make these talks successful. World powers that secretly support the militant groups should cease their support for the sake of peace and stability. The sanctuaries and safe-havens of these militants should be destroyed, wherever they exist. And any such effort should be honest and common public should not be anymore befooled on the name of peace talks and negotiations.