Islamabad - KUNA
Pakistan's Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan on Thursday said that carrying on with peace talks with the Pakistani Taliban amid terrorist attacks throughout the country would be injustice to the victims of such attacks.The Interior Minister in a press conference in capital city Islamabad announced that Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, after consultations with the committee and military leadership, had decided that the dialogue process could not continue in the aftermath of recent terrorist attacks.If talks continued it would be a great injustice in light of the innocent civilians and security personnel killed in terrorist acts accross the country, he added.Khan said that the prime minister, in his last address, had made it clear that terrorism, violence and dialogue could not run tandem, and that the government committee tasked with holding peace talks with the Taliban had also set the same condition.The Interior Minister said that security forces would not hesitate to take action in self-defense, if they came under attack."We cannot take away the right of self-defense from our security forces," he said.The statement by the minister comes after the killing of at least 15 militants on Thursday as Pakistani fighter jets bombarded militant hideouts in three different locations in the northern Pakistani tribal regions bordering Afghanistan.The air strikes were launched after several militant attacks by Tehreek e Taliban Pakistan (TTP) including the killing of 23 FC soldiers kidnapped from Shongari check post in the tribal region in 2010.