ISLAMABAD: Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam-Fazl (JUI-F) chief Maulana Fazlur Rehman on Monday welcomed “positive” demands by Pakistani Taliban of making Sharif, Hasan and himself guarantor for holding peace talks with the government, DawnNews reported.

Speaking to media representatives, he said the conditions set by the banned Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) for holding talks was a progress in the right direction.

TTP spokesman Ehsnaullah Ehsan, in a video interview, had said on Saturday that if Pakistan Muslim League–Nawaz (PML-N) chief Nawaz Sharif, Jamaat-i-Islami (JI) Ameer Syed Munawar Hasan and Fazlur Rehman acted as guarantors for the peace talks, they would be willing to negotiate in the best interest of the country.

The JUI-F chief recommended using the platform of FATA’s grand Jirga for peace negotiations with the outlaws.

Meanwhile, expressing his reservations on the issue, JI’s Deputy Secretary General Farid Ahmed Piracha had told Dawn that his party was not going to oblige the TTP’s demands.

“How can we become a guarantor (in talks) when the government is not ready to implement even the resolutions of parliament,” he added.

Earlier, speaking to a press conference, Maulana Fazlur Rehman, who also heads the National Assembly’s Kashmir committee, said Kashmir was a human and political issue and Pakistan was fighting a war of rules rather than of land.

He said the committee has submitted its recommendations to the government on the Kashmir issue.