ISLAMABAD: The Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) asked the government on Monday to take the political ownership of military strikes against militants in the tribal areas.

Talking to reporters outside the Parliament House, PTI chief Imran Khan advised the government to limit surgical strikes to those Taliban factions which were involved in attacks on security forces and civilians. He also called upon the banned Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) to unilaterally announce a ceasefire to save the peace process.

He claimed that about 50 groups within the TTP were willing to hold talks with the government and again urged Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif to personally lead the peace process, because the country was facing an existential crisis.

“If at all the government believes it is left with no other option but to carry out a military operation, it should first evacuate about 600,000 people from North Waziristan, on the lines of the Swat military operation, to avoid collateral damage.”

Political analysts are of the opinion that the PTI has of late somewhat changed its stance towards the Taliban. “Since the PTI was directly involved in the peace process, its leadership was left with no excuse but to change the stance,” one of the analysts who declined to speak on the record said.

The PTI is the only political party that has a representative in the four-member government committee formed to hold talks which collapsed before actually taking off. Former ambassador Rustam Shah Mohmand was the PTI’s nominee in the committee which effectively called off the talks on Feb 18 after a Mohamand Agency-based TTP group accepted responsibility for beheading 23 Frontier Corps (FC) men.

The TTP had nominated Mr Khan as its negotiator but he declined and expressed confidence in the government’s initiative.

A detailed press release explaining the PTI’s stance on the peace process said: “The PML-N government must now take political ownership of any military operation and inform the political leadership and the nation.”

It said the party still felt that talks were the best way forward but if targeted operations were required, “the government must create national consensus and take responsibility by giving a clear policy and ensuring protection of civilians -- especially to avoid revenge attacks”.

Referring to the party’s manifesto, it said the best policy to deal with the militants was to disengage, isolate and exterminate. “Only by isolating the hardcore terrorists from those willing to talk can the government bring sustainable peace.”

PTI spokesperson Dr Shireen Mazari said her party was disappointed by what she termed “pre-planned sabotage” of the process. “They seem to have succeeded and talks seem to be off the table.”

She said the PTI was committed to peace and had always felt that it could be better achieved through dialogue. The PTI had seen what happened in Afghanistan where the US with all its money and military prowess could not achieve peace through force, hence the only superpower had reverted to talks with the Afghan Taliban.

She said that in Pakistan, 6,000 operations, 200 of them major operations, since the 9/11 attacks had failed to bring peace. Giving peace a chance through dialogue was the demand of all political parties in several all-party conferences convened over the past year by the previous and current government, she said.

So the demand for dialogue was not simply a PTI position but a national consensus among all political parties, she said, adding that her party had also proposed a framework for the process: talks to be held within the constitution, ceasefire by both sides and isolating those not willing to negotiate from those ready to hold talks.