WASHINGTON: Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf always believed that Hakeemullah Mehsud and his militants were terrorists, a senior PTI leader said on Sunday.

Addressing party workers at a rally near Washington, Asad Umar said that their demand to stop US drone strikes in Pakistan was based on principles of sovereignty.

Pakistan, he said, was an independent state where all political parties got together at a meeting two months ago and urged the United States to stop the strikes.

“There’s a national consensus on this issue. The drones are killing a lot of innocent people, that’s why we want the attacks to stop,” he said.

Mr Umar said that many people in America were also acknowledging that the drones were counter-productive because of the so-called collateral damage, which allowed militants to enroll fresh recruits.

The present Pakistani government, he said, recently pledged to the parliament that it would work to end the strikes “and we hope that they fulfil this promise.”

PTI’s stance on this issue, he said, should be viewed in this perspective and not as a demand separate from the rest of the country’s wishes.

“We never said that Hakeemullah was not a terrorist or TTP is not a terrorist group,” the PTI lawmaker said.

“We want to engage them in peace talks because we see them as a threat to the country. You do not hold peace talks with your friends.”

Asked if PTI would carry out its threat to stop Nato supplies after Nov 20, Mr Umar said: “We are hoping that the federal government will do something before that to stop the strikes.”

If the government failed to keep its promise, “then we will come out with our own action plan”, said the PTI lawmaker when asked if the Nov 20 deadline was final.

Mr Umar said that PTI’s drone policy was not much different from what the interior minister presented to the parliament recently as the government’s policy on this issue.

“We are now waiting for the federal government to act,” he added. “Mere statements will not help. People are demanding concrete actions.”

A recent PTI legislation on this issue, he said, was “open-ended, not a dead end”.