Source: The Economist.
WHO knows what Pakistan’s two most powerful men spent three hours talking about when the army chief travelled to Lahore to pay a visit to Nawaz Sharif, the country’s incoming prime minister? But if they discussed schemes for taking on the group known as Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), they appear not to have agreed on how best to deal with the biggest threat to the country’s domestic security: militant Islamists hellbent on toppling the state.
Mr Sharif has long advocated a soft line. The TTP’s offer of talks with the government should, he said recently, be taken seriously. Why not “talk to the Taliban to make our country peaceful?” he asked. Later Mr Sharif’s officials asked an aged extremist, Sami ul Haq, the head of a madrassa near Peshawar, to act as an envoy.