Pakistan Taliban regrouping in Peshawar, FATA: Iftikhar

Islamabad, Mar 14 (ANI): The Pakistan Taliban are re-grouping in Peshawar and tribal areas to counter the impact of the security forces' crackdown on them, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Information Minister Mian Iftikhar Hussain has said.

"The growing desire among Pakistani Taliban for holding talks with the government has created serious differences among the terror outfit. Due to these differences, the Taliban leadership recently sacked their spokesman, Maulvi Faqir Mohammad, for openly supporting the idea of dialogue with the government," The Dawn quoted him, as saying.

Iftikhar urged Pakistan, Afghanistan and the US to form a joint team for meaningful dialogue with Taliban leaders to achieve desired goals of peace in the region.

"The experience of holding talks with Taliban separately by Pakistan, Afghanistan and the US miserably failed in the past. Even the recent US efforts to gain positive outcome from the Qatar moot is not going to deliver the goods," he said.

He also said the only way out to restore peace in the region lied in holding joint dialogue by Pakistan, Afghanistan and the US with the Taliban and that if it failed, then effective action had to be taken to eliminate them completely.

"We have faced them and rooted them out and will continue doing so," he added. (ANI)