Pakistan Taliban agree to 'complete ceasefire,' government says

Pakistan and Taliban flags are seen on their respective sides near Friendship gate at a border crossing point in Chaman, Pakistan, on Aug. 27, 2021. (AP)

ISLAMABAD -

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."

The negotiations would follow the law and constitution of Pakistan, he said. The TTP has yet to respond to the announcement.

The TTP is an umbrella organization of al Qaeda linked Sunni militant groups that has waged a war against the state in which tens of thousands of Pakistanis have been killed in the last two decades.

The Taliban's takeover of Afghanistan, where they ruled with an iron fist from 1996 to 2001, has emboldened Islamist militants in the region, especially those who have long held sway in tribal districts along the Afghan-Pakistan border, once the headquarters of local and foreign Islamists.

The TTP is now seeking concessions. According to sources, it has given the government a list of a number of its imprisoned leaders that it wants released to ensure further progress in negotiations.

(Editing by Hugh Lawson and Nick Macfie)