(MENAFN- Khaleej Times) Ime minister hopes for success of peace talks with taleban.underpinning his government’s efforts to promote peace in south asia and good-neighbourly relations with india and afghanistan prime minister nawaz sharif has said this would remain on top of priorities of foreign policy agenda no matter who comes into power after elections in both the countries.“i’ve very good terms with president hamid karzai. and whoever is elected to power in the ongoing elections in india we’ll have to improve relations with them” he added while addressing envoys’ conference at foreign office here on tuesday.earlier in an interview with bbc urdu sharif said that his government wanted to revive the pre-1999 era of bilateral relations when the then indian prime minister atal behari vajpayee visited pakistan.“we want to improve trade relations with them. we want to ease visa restrictions. we want to expand trade ties and to import electricity from india. and we want to resolve all issues including kashmir” he said.and weeks after the tehreek-e-taleban pakistan (ttp) ended its 40-day ceasefire amid floundering peace initiatives by the government the pakistani premier hoped that “negotiations with the taleban could succeed”.he said some elements were not happy with the cessation of hostilities. “they are neither our well-wishers nor perhaps are they the taleban’s. they want to sabotage the process. they are enemies of peace” the premier said.sharif said that he believed his dialogue strategy could “bring peace without any further bloodshed”. “if we can make this process somehow successful i think it will be the best option” he added.he said the militants had to respect the constitution and lay down their arms. “this of course is the number one condition that has to be met.“we are making progress on these issues. let us see if the next round of meetings is successful and we can make a headway in the talks we are holding with each other.”the prime minister said it would take two or three more meetings for the two sides to know “how sincere we are with each other and how the talks are progressing”. he added that security situation had improved while the talks have been under way.sharif blamed the military rule for the volatile security situation in the country which according to him started after the september 9 2001 terrorist attacks in the united states. “had there been no martial law there would have been no law and order situation in pakistan. pakistan had been peaceful during democratic governments” he added.referring to a recent statement of army chief general raheel sharif the premier said that the army chief has rightly said that the constitution is supreme and everyone should respect the constitution. “the army chief’s statement has cleared many ambiguities” he added.regarding gun attack on tv anchor hamid mir and the subsequent slur campaign of geo tv against the inter services intelligence (isi) the premier said that it was wrong to jump to conclusions. “we should not speculate until all the facts transpire. we should wait for the findings of the judicial commission. it will become clear who is responsible” he said.about the situation in balochistan sharif said that the province had been hurt a lot. “we all know how nawab akbar bugti was murdered and then buried in the presence of a few people. no one has forgotten that. i also feel the pain of the baloch people.”“we will ensure the supply of natural gas to every city of balochistan. we’ll lay a network of roads in the province. people will see unprecedented development work during these five years. we’ll address the sense of deprivation of the baloch people. and those who did injustice with them will have to face the consequences.”referring to his upcoming trip to tehran the premier said that it was aimed at further enhancing historic ties with the islamic republic. all issues including gas import bilateral trade and border matters would be discussed during the visit.regarding the chronic energy crisis that leads to violent protests every summer he said that 23000 megawatt projects had been set up in the country during the last 65 years. “but in the next six months we aim to generate an additional 21000 megawatts of electricity. this will be a huge leap” he said.sharif said that the government military and intelligence agencies were unitedly moving forward to overcome security problems.asked about his government’s performance during the last 10 months sharif said the government had been paying special attention to education energy economy and extremism.news?khaleejtimes.com for more news from khaleej times follow us on facebook at facebook.com/khaleejtimes and on twitter at ?khaleejtimes follow ?khaleejtimes -->
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