Pakistan and local Taliban militants have agreed to a “complete ceasefire”, information minister Fawad Chaudhry said on Monday, after talks which the Taliban government in neighbouring Afghanistan helped to arrange.
The Pakistani Taliban aim to overthrow the government and govern the South Asian nation of 220 million by enforcing their own brand of harsh Islamic law.
The militants, also known as Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, or TTP, are separate from the Afghan Taliban.
“The ceasefire will keep on extending with the progress in the negotiations,” Chaudhry said in a statement. “The government of Pakistan and banned Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan have agreed on a complete ceasefire.”
Separately, Pakistan said on Monday it has lifted a ban on a radical Islamist party behind a violent anti-France protest last month that triggered clashes with police, leaving six officers and four demonstrators dead.
The development follows an agreement reached last week between the government of Prime Minister Imran Khan and Tehreek-e-Labiak Pakistan that the party would halt its march to Islamabad. The march was called to demand the closure of the French embassy in the Pakistani capital.
The interior ministry lifted the ban late on Sunday, saying the move was in the “national interest”.. In response, the party on Monday afternoon ended its two-week protest along a highway in the city of Wazirabad, telling demonstrators that TLP’s leader Saad Rizvi would soon be released from jail and urging them to return to the city of Lahore to await his release.
The party has waged an anti-France campaign after Paris-based satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo republished cartoons depicting the Prophet Mohammed - act deemed blasphemous by many Muslims.
{{/usCountry}}The party has waged an anti-France campaign after Paris-based satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo republished cartoons depicting the Prophet Mohammed - act deemed blasphemous by many Muslims.
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