Taliban agrees to leave Pak's Buner District

Lahore, Apr. 10 (ANI): The Swat-Taliban has agreed to leave Buner District without any condition after a peace jirga persuaded them to do so.

The Daily Times quoted Malakand Commissioner Syed Muhammad Javed as saying that the Taliban had agreed to leave Buner and would completely vacate the area by Friday.

The Taliban had made no demands for vacating the area, he added.

Earlier, the local jirga held talks with the Taliban under the supervision of the commissioner Javed.

"Maulana Waliullah mediated between the jirga members and Taliban. People of the area were satisfied with the result of the dialogue and were happy the Taliban were leaving Buner," Jawed said.

During the talks, top jirga members had offered the Taliban a peace deal and apology to end the standoff resulting from villagers executing 20 Taliban last week.

"We want peaceful settlement of the Taliban presence in Buner," Waliullah said while confirming that the jirga members had offered unconditional apology to the Taliban.

On Tuesday, around a dozen people including eight Taliban militants had been killed in violent clashes between locals and Taliban militants, who invaded Gokand area of Buner District

"Whatever has happened was a mistake on the part of some people and all us jirga members regret the incident," the Buner jirga members stated in their apology. (ANI)