With a clear political vision, categorical demands for the release of prisoners, and for space in what it calls its “area of influence,” the banned terrorist outfit Tehreek-e-Taleban Pakistan (TTP) is slowly moving toward securing political legitimacy in Pakistan.

On April 3, as a goodwill gesture, the government set free 19 detainees from the embattled Waziristan region. On April 4, the TTP extended the month-old cease-fire to April 10 and demanded the release of another 100 detainees, most of them touted as non-combatants.

Although the Interior Ministry and officials in northwestern Pakistan played down the release as a routine matter, it’s clear that the militant outfit — which has been at the heart of brutal executions and suicide bombings in the last few years — wants several hardcore comrades released from jail.

At the same time, Jamaat-e-Islami has gone a step further by demanding that the next stage of peace talks with the TTP be held in Islamabad. The demand came from the newly appointed chief of the party, Sirajul Haq.

The first meeting between government and TTP representatives took place in March at an undisclosed location in the mountainous terrain of North Waziristan, which borders Afghanistan. Direct talks between the TTP and the government either in Islamabad, Pakistan’s capital, or in Peshawar, the capital of Pakistan’s Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province, would certainly amount to another major concession to a group that publicly rejects the Pakistani state and its constitution.

The TTP wants its own version of Shariah law imposed across Pakistan. It also wants a “peace zone” where it can engage in dialogue with the government in safety. Last week, however, Khawaja Asif — Pakistan’s defense minister — ruled out any compromise on Pakistan’s constitution and its territorial integrity. Every decision and step, he said, will be strictly in accordance with the constitution.

The government and the Taleban are in a second round of talks, which interlocutors have described as “decisive.” These talks began in March, after Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif told the Parliament that he wanted to give the dialogue a last chance to stop the bloodshed that Pakistan has suffered in the last decade.

Since Pakistan partnered with the United States in its controversial “war on terror” in Afghanistan in October 2001, it has suffered nearly 51,000 casualties, including some 5,000 military and civilian security personnel. An official document — the National Internal Security Policy — puts the cumulative losses at $78 billion in the last 10 years.

Nisar Ali Khan, the interior minister and Sharif’s point man for the talks, also supports the dialogue. He considers this the best way out of the “bloody war that former President Gen. Pervez Musharraf imposed on Pakistan.”

“It’s America’s war,” Khan declared before a gathering of mostly religious and political leaders, activists, and intellectuals last week in Islamabad. Most of them supported the dialogue with the TTP, saying the group could be talked out of the insurgency on a “give and take” basis.

The TTP is said to have shared with government negotiators a list of more than 700 Taleban “non-combatants” who they claim are in the custody of the security forces. The government, on the other hand, is demanding the release of some high-profile figures held hostage by the Taleban.

Engaging in dialogue with an organization that the United States designates as a terrorist outfit has turned out to be quite divisive in Pakistan.

But, as Pakistan undergoes a painful democratic transition, the once-unchallenged military appears to have opted for a low-key role and is going along with the government’s decision.

Most liberal writers and academics also oppose the de facto “unconditional” talks, saying they violate the country’s constitution and undermine its sovereignty.

Raza Rumi, a prominent writer and TV show host, holds similar views and has been vocal in his opposition to the talks. As a result, 11 bullets were fired on his car in Lahore in late March, and while he survived, his driver Mustafa was killed. The attack on Rumi has sent shivers down the spines of many and terrified those opposed to the way the government is pressing ahead with the talks.

“It was a clear message to all of us,” said the editor of a national daily that has been a vocal critic of the Al-Qaeda-inspired militant groups in Pakistan. And, indeed, ever since the attack on Rumi, opposition to talks with the TTP has been much less visible.

(In partnership with The Mark News)