The Pakistani government and a Taliban-nominated committee met for the first time here today to discuss a roadmap for parleys under the Constitution to end a bloody insurgency that has claimed thousands of lives.
The government committee demanded that talks should be held under the ambit of the Constitution and that any peace pact agreed on should be enforceable only in "troubled areas" or the tribal belt bordering Afghanistan.
A joint statement issued after the meeting said both sides floated recommendations during the nearly four-hour talks.
Maulana Samiul Haq, known as the "father of the Taliban" and a member of the committee nominated by the banned Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), read out the statement which said state negotiators called for immediately stopping all activities that may affect peace efforts.
The state negotiators also called for talks to be smoothly concluded in a short timeframe.
The talks were to be originally held on Tuesday but were postponed after state negotiators sought clarifications on several unspecified issues.
Today's meeting was the first test for the ruling PML-N's controversial efforts to seek a peaceful resolution to the insurgency launched by the TTP in late 2007. It was held amid growing scepticism over whether the initiative can yield any deal, with detractors pointing out that all previous peace pacts with the Taliban had collapsed within months.
The Taliban have carried out hundreds of bombings and suicide attacks that have claimed about 40,000 lives, according to official figures.
During the meeting, state negotiators pointed out that the TTP had reportedly formed another committee besides the three-member panel led by Samiul Haq. The scope and authority of both teams to implement a peace pact should be clarified, they said.
The Taliban-nominated committee asked the government to clarify the mandate and authority of its four-member panel, and its ability to implement any peace pact.
The venue for the meeting was initially kept a secret though the media were later told the preliminary talks to chart a roadmap for future discussions were held at Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa House in the federal capital.
