Pakistani negotiators refuse to meet Taliban intermediaries

In an apparent deadlock in the peace dialogue in Pakistan, a government's negotiation team Monday refused to meet the Taliban intermediaries a day after the Taliban killed 23 security men. The Taliban faction in Mohmand tribal region said that 23 security personnels, who had been captured in 2010, were killed on Sunday as revenge to what it called "extra-judicial killing of its detained activists." The incident has been proved as a serious setback for the ongoing fragile peace process "The Government's dialogue committee, which was scheduled to hold talks with the Taliban mediators on Monday, will not meet them," coordinator of the Committee, Irfan Siddiqui said. "The meeting would be useless following the martyrdom of the 23 security men," Siddiqui said in a statement. He said the government's negotiation team has unanimously described the incident as shocking and condemnable. He said the recent series of terror attacks have had negative impact on the ongoing serious peace process. "The nation expects urgent and positive results of the dialogue process to stop more bloodshed in Pakistan," Siddiqui said. He said it is sad that the talks are not heading to a right direction. Siddiqui said that an emergent meeting of the Government's committee has been convened to meet on Tuesday to review the latest situation after the killing of 23 security men. Another member of the government's team, Rahimullah Yousafzai, termed the emerging situation as very serious after the Taliban's killing of security men. Yousafzai told the media that the official team will seek clarification from the Taliban committee about the incident. Days before the Sunday's killings of the security men, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, had termed the previous attacks as a serious setback for the dialogue process. The government is expected to come under pressure to act against the Taliban as there is no let up in terror attacks.