PESHAWAR: Talks scheduled for Tuesday between government negotiators and the leadership of outlawed Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan were deferred because of bad weather.

Prof Mohammad Ibrahim, a member of the TTP negotiation team, said that a new date for talks would be announced soon. He was talking to newsmen at Jamaat-i-Islami’s provincial headquarters.

He declined to disclose the venue of the talks and said “this is a secret and we can’t disclose it”. He also refused to share the agenda of the meeting.

Prof Ibrahim said that because of inclement weather the helicopter carrying the negotiators, some elderly people among them, could not take off from Islamabad.

He said Maulana Samiul Haq, head of the Taliban committee, would also take part in direct talks.

Qari Shakil, Azam Tariq, Maulvi Zakir and Maulvi Bashir will represent the TTP in the talks with a four-member government committee headed by senior bureaucrat Habibullah Khan.

Prof Ibrahim said he hoped the Taliban would extend the ceasefire declared earlier this month for 30 days. He said the Taliban called for release of 300 non-combatants who, according to them, were in the custody of security forces. But the Inter-Services Public Relations has denied the claim.

The government, he said, had demanded release of Ajmal Khan, Vice Chancellor of Islamia College University, Haider Gilani and Shahbaz Taseer. The TTP committee had already asked the Taliban Shura to set Ajmal Khan free, he said.Jamaat-i-Islami will hold a peace conference in Peshawar on April 3 and has invited Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Chief Minister Pervez Khattak, Maulana Samiul Haq and Syed Munawar Hasan to attend it.