ISLAMABAD (AFP) ― Pakistan on Sunday said it was halting air strikes against Taliban militants in response to a month-long cease-fire announced by the insurgents a day earlier, paving the way for the resumption of peace talks.
The government entered into peace talks with the Taliban last month aimed at ending the militants’ seven-year insurgency, but the dialogue broke down after militants killed 23 kidnapped soldiers.
The military responded with a series of air strikes in the volatile northwestern tribal areas that left more than 100 insurgents dead, and on Saturday the Taliban announced a month-long cease-fire aimed at resuming the stalled talks.
“After the positive announcement yesterday by the Taliban, the government has decided to suspend the air strikes which were continuing for the past few days,” interior minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan said in a statement Sunday.
The statement added that “the government and armed forces of Pakistan, however, reserve the right for a befitting response to any act of violence (by the Taliban).”
The Taliban’s cease-fire announcement on Saturday was met with skepticism by analysts who said it may have been a tactic to allow the militants to regroup after they had taken heavy losses in air strikes.
koreaherald@heraldcorp.com
