by Thomas Manning

Negotiations between the Pakistani government and the Taliban have begun in Islamabad on Thursday February 6^th, 2014. The first round of the peace talks comes amid seven years of consistent attacks by the Taliban upon the Pakistani government and attempts to overthrow the government to establish Sharia law (aka strict Islamic law) throughout the country. The talks between the government and Taliban have been seen as a meeting in which the tone was set for the two sides to establish a dialogue between the two sides and to also establish a “broad road map” for future contacts during the negotiations.

In a text message that came from the negotiations, Irfan Siddiqui who is part of the negotiating team on the government side, sent a text message which stated that the atmosphere within the meetings had been “cordial and friendly”. Siddiqui also went onto say about the Taliban that they “responded beyond our expectations”.

The original meeting which was set to take place on Tuesday, got off to a rocky start when representatives from the government side, showed up to the meetings late, which did not sit well with Taliban representatives.

According to sources familiar with the meeting, the two sides agreed that “there should be no activity by either side which can potentially harm the peace effort”. This is in reference to a series of attacks which have devastated military targets throughout Pakistan recently, raising concern among many people throughout the country that the government would be unwilling to come to the negotiating table. However, the government at the last minute (last week) changed their mind and offered to start the negotiation process and invited the Taliban to the negotiation table, an invitation in which the Taliban moved quickly to set up a negotiation team.

Despite the coming together of the two sides, many analysts who follow the situation in Pakistan closely doubt that the two sides can come to an agreement which would be long lasting.

A recent suicide bombing, took place last week in the city of Peshawar, as the two sides prepared for the negotiations, killing eight people near a Shi’ite Muslim mosque which killed eight people. Taliban representatives have tried to distance themselves from the attack; however the attack has only provided more skepticism for a country which could be described as being war weary from the ongoing of the nearly seven year old war between Taliban insurgent and government forces.