INSIGHT: SOUTH ASIA - Pakistan scrambles as Taliban threat appears on

IN BRIEF Pakistani Minister of Foreign Affairs Bilawal Bhutto- Zardari, on January 17, ruled out the possibility of talks with the TTP and accused the previous government, led by Imran Khan, of following a policy of “appeasement” towards the militant group. [...] The announcement, made on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting in Davos on January 19, comes roughly two months after the TTP called off a ceasefire with the Pakistani government. [...] Increased expenditure on military in 2007 in opposition to the Pakistani military’s Pakistan spends the equivalent of four per cent of its support of the U. [...] Second, it wants the removal of fencing along The TTP’s latest calls for attacks, months before the the Durand Line, which demarcates the land border country faces general elections, brought fears of a between Afghanistan and Pakistan, and has been a repeat of pre-election violence in 2013, when over contentious issue for ethnic Pashtuns on both sides of 240 people were killed – over half of them. [...] Third, it wants the Pakistani government In a message similar to the one issued in 2013, the to release TTP members from government prisons.