ISLAMABAD: Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan will meet members of the Taliban negotiating committee on Saturday to assess the situation after the outlawed Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan refused to extend its ceasefire but kept the doors of dialogue open.

An interior ministry official said that after getting an input from the Cabinet Committee on National Security (CCNS), Chaudhry Nisar had decided to hold discussions with the three-member TTP team headed by Maulana Samiul Haq on the possibility of taking the peace process forward.

Thursday’s cabinet committee meeting presided over by Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif agreed to stick to talks.

However, in response to the TTP decision of ending the ceasefire, the interior minister said after attending the CCNS meeting that with such discouraging response coming from the other side no meaningful talks could be held.

The TTP accused the government of not positively responding to its demands.

An immediate task before the government and TTP committees will be to persuade the Taliban leadership to extend the ceasefire and let the peace process take its course.

After the TTP’s decision to go ahead with its attacks and the government sounding vague, question remains where the whole process is headed? Will the two sides remain engaged in talks just for the sake of talks or end up in some concrete outcome?

In background discussions both sides accused each other of dithering on the promises they made in multiple rounds of talks, including a meeting in North Waziristan Agency where the government committee met the top TTP leadership.

“Real issue is trust deficit which the two sides have so far failed to bridge,” said a senior government official privy to the talks. The TTP announced ceasefire and, in response, the government released 19 prisoners which it claimed were non-combatant Taliban proved innocent after an investigation by the local administration.

The TTP said the prisoners were not the ones it had sought to be freed after announcing the ceasefire.

A negotiator representing the government argued that it was part of the record that 19 prisoners had been released as a goodwill gesture which some factions within the TTP had duly accepted. “Yes, the TTP has given us a long list of its prisoners which is in the process of verification. It’s a time-consuming process. They should not make this delay an excuse and end ceasefire.”

Actually, the member contended, confusion and division within the TTP over talks had led to the ending of ceasefire. He referred to the recent infighting between various TTP factions and said that at the moment militants were more concerned about unity within their ranks than holding talks with the government.

Secondly, he said, the government had also asked for release of former vice-chancellor of Peshawar’s Islamia College University Dr Ajmal Khan and sons of slain Punjab governor Salman Taseer and former prime minister Yousuf Raza Gilani.

If the TTP leadership is under pressure from within and wants quick results, the government too is accountable to the opposition parties, civil society and media.

But a TTP committee member said the government’s snail pace approach was adversely affecting the talks. “The government publicly committed to releasing 13 more Taliban prisoners, but now it’s keeping silent.”

He was of the opinion that release of more prisoners from a list of 800 provided by the TTP to the government could have softened militants’ stand. In reply to a question, the negotiator said some powerful groups within the TTP were deadly against the talks which Chaudhry Nisar should understand and avoid issuing unnecessary statements.

Rahimullah Yousufzai, who represented the government in the first phase of talks, said he was not surprised over the hiccups. “Frankly speaking, for me even the announcement of ceasefire by the TTP was a great achievement. Now though the militants have refused to extend the deadline, their willingness to continue with the peace process should be taken as a positive sign.”

More such difficulties would come in their way because it was a highly complicated issue, predicted Mr Yousufzai, who had been covering militancy-infested tribal areas as journalist for one and a half decades.